Bill Cleland was a pioneering thoracic surgeon who helped develop open heart surgery in London in the 1950s. He was born in Sydney, New South Wales, on 30 May 1912, the son of Sir John Burton Cleland, professor of pathology at the University of Adelaide, and Dora Isabel Robson. He was proud to be th

James Daniel Hardy was an organ transplant pioneer and the first chairman of the department of surgery and surgeon in chief at the University Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi. Board certified by both the American Board of Surgery and the Board of Thoracic Surgery and a fellow of the American Col

William Glasgow Ferguson, or 'Fergie' as he was known, was a thoracic surgeon in Victoria, Australia. He was born in Whitley Bay, Northumberland, on 4 March 1919, the son of William and Sara Ferguson. He studied medicine at Durham, where he qualified in 1942. After four months as a house surgeon at

Clem Grimshaw was a thoracic surgeon in Oxford. He was born on 15 May 1915, in Batley, Yorkshire, to a wool family and was educated at Woodhouse Grove, the local Methodist school, where he learned to play the organ. A Latin master encouraged him to go to Edinburgh. On qualifying, he spent a year i

Born at Allahabad, India, of Canadian parents who were missionaries, on 24 January 1905, he won a scholarship to the University of Saskatchewan, graduated with silver and gold medals, and was a demonstrator of physiology. He won a Rhodes scholarship to St John's College, Oxford, where he graduated w

Born 16 August 1916 in Montrose, Scotland, the son of a general practitioner and his wife Annie (Mackenzie), Douglas Milne was educated at Montrose Academy and the University of Aberdeen. He served as Captain with the RAMC in the second world war from 1941 and saw active service in the Middle East (

Norman Barrett was born in Adelaide, Australia, on 16 May 1903. He was one of the great pioneers of thoracic surgery. After spending his early years in Australia he came to England and was educated at Eton where he was distinguished in both academic and athletic fields. He proceeded to Trinity Colle

William Corbitt Barnsley was educated at South Shields High School and graduated in medicine from Armstrong College, Newcastle upon Tyne, where, as an undergraduate, he won many prizes and medals. After a period at Newcastle General Hospital, where he gained general experience in surgery, he proceed

It could be said that had Tom Smiley not been a cigarette smoker in 1941, his patients and colleagues, thoracic surgery and his own family and local community would never have known him as a fine surgeon, husband and father and dedicated churchman, for it was a cigarette-case in his breast-pocket wh

Born on 1 February 1911, in Belfast, the son of John Alexander Bingham, pharmaceutical chemist, and Essie Jane (née Carlson), John was educated at the Methodist College and Queen's University, Belfast. He won the Musgrave Prize in pathology and the Coulter and McWhitty Prizes. After graduating MB, B

John Angus Aylwin was born in Leeds, the son of Ernest Angus Aylwin, an engineer, who married a Miss Bates, but John was the only man in the family to take up medicine. He was educated at the Leeds Grammar School and in medicine at Leeds University, where he qualified MB ChB in 1940. He became a Fel

Born at Hawkes Bay, New Zealand on 28 August 1902, the second of the three sons of George Nelson, civil engineer, and Mabel Price, his wife. He was educated at Fount Row, Surrey, at Harrow from Easter 1916 to Midsummer 1918, and at Caius College, Cambridge, from Michaelmas term 1920. He graduated in