Francis Finlaison was born on 1 January 1906 and educated at Charterhouse, Clare College, Cambridge and St Thomas's Hospital. After qualification in 1930 he held several resident posts at St Thomas's Hospital and then became chief assistant to the obstetrical department at the same hospital. Finl

Francis John Hector was born in Bristol on October 15 1894. He was educated at Bristol, King's College, the Middlesex Hospital and Guy's Hospital and qualified MRCS LRCP in 1922 and was appointed consulting gynaecologist to the Bristol United Hospital. A man of many great abilities and diverse inter

Born in London on 5 March 1888, son of Walter Fowler FRCS 1858-1917, and grandson of Robert Fowler, a doctor. His parents emigrated to Victoria, Australia, in 1891, where Walter Fowler practised at Echuca and became superintendent of Bendigo Hospital. Robert was educated in Melbourne at Caulfield Gr

After qualifying in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon), Hiary Kumarasinghe worked as a house officer in the General Hospital for four years and then as a registrar in the University Hospital, before going to England to specialise in surgery in 1964. He did junior posts at the Chelmsford and Essex Hospit

Donald Forsyth Lawson graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1933 and his early appointments included that of resident medical officer at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1934. He passed the diploma in gynaecology and obstetrics at Melbourne in 1936 and following this was medical superintenden

Margaret Moore White was born in Derby on 5 February 1902, the daughter of Henry Thomas White, a civil engineer and his wife Adriana, née McBean. Her early education was at Belmont School, Derby, but when she was 13 years old the family moved to London and until the age of 17 she went to the Tremart

Edwin Carlyle Wood, known as 'Carl', was a pioneering gynaecologist who, in 1973 in Melbourne, achieved the world's first test tube pregnancy. He was born in Melbourne on 28 May 1929, the son of a gynaecologist, Carlyle Sandford Wood, and Nellie Clayton Wood née Miller. He attended Wesley College an

Graeme McLeish was born in Melbourne on 6 June 1930. His father, Roderick Simpson McLeish, was a salesman and his mother was Doris, née Hague. From Spring Road School he gained a scholarship to Scotch College, Melbourne, where he was Dux of the school in 1947 and school captain in 1948. He held RMO

Ian Logan Craft was born on 11 July 1937 in Wanstead, East London, one of twins, sadly his sister failed to survive the birth. He was the eldest of the three sons of Reginald Craft, an employee of Barclays Bank, and his wife Lois née Logan, who also worked for the bank until she married. Educated in

Alan Gillespie was born on 25 May 1928. He studied medicine at London University and trained at University College Hospital (UCH), graduating MB, BS with first class honours in 1951. After initial house jobs at UCH and the Samaritan Hospital for Women in London, he was appointed senior registrar in

David Gordon was a gynaecologist at Epsom. He was born in Kohat, India, on the North West frontier, where his father was a Brigadier with the 2/8th Gurkha Rifles. As was usual in those days, David was sent to England at the age of eight to live with an aunt at Lyme Regis. He was later sent to Wellin

Ruby Grace Sharp was born in Cape Town in 1906, the third daughter of Dr Robert Sharp, a surgeon in Cape Town at that time, and was educated at Wynberg Girls' High School. She was a talented and clever girl and legend has it that she required a wheelbarrow to take home her trophies on prize-giving d