Reginald Seymour Lawrie, always known as 'Rex', was a consultant general surgeon to Guy's Hospital from 1948 until 1977. He did much pioneering work in paediatric surgery before it became recognised as a specialty. He also worked at the Evelina Hospital, holding appointments at Sydenham Children's, Edenbridge and at Bolingbroke hospitals. He was an outstanding general surgeon whose innate modesty meant that his achievements were not as widely recognised as they deserved to be. However, as a superb teacher and mentor, his many trainees appreciated his technical skills and wide-ranging knowledge in both medicine and surgery. Rex Lawrie was born in Helensburgh, Scotland, on 22 June 1917 and came from a long line of scholars, engineers and doctors. He was particularly proud of being a direct descendant of Sir Hans Sloane, president of the Royal College of Physicians from 1718 to 1735. His father, Walter Gray Lawrie, was a Royal Engineer. His mother, Eleanor Fitzgerald Lawrie née Aitken, was a housewife. Two uncles, both Glasgow graduates, were doctors - James MacPherson Lawrie, a surgeon, and William John Lawrie, a general practitioner. Two cousins, James MacPherson Lawrie and Holland 'Robin' Hood Lawrie both graduated from Middlesex Hospital. Rex received his primary education at Temple Grove preparatory school in Eastbourne from 1927 to 1930, and then proceeded to Wellington College for a further three years, where he was a brilliant scholar. He entered Middlesex Hospital Medical School at the age of 16 to study for the first MB examination, in which he gained a distinction in physics. In the basic sciences he was greatly influenced by Tim Yeates in anatomy, Samson Wright in physiology and, later, Lionel Whitby in bacteriology. He won prizes in anatomy and physiology, obtaining the Meyerstein scholarship and Begley studentship of the Royal College of Surgeons. Rex's clinical course followed a similar academic pattern as he gained the Douglas Cree prize in medicine, the Lyell gold medal in surgery and won the Broderip scholarship. During his clinical course he was influenced by Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor and David Patey. In the final MB BS examination he obtained honours in medicine and pathology, and was awarded the London University gold medal. Qualifying shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, only a substitute medal was available because of the stringencies of wartime. The real gold one was eventually awarded in 2009, 70 years after the examination, at a ceremony specially convened by the vice-chancellor of London University. House appointments followed qualification, first at the Middlesex Hospital with E A Cockayne, then at the Brompton Hospital with G E Beaumont and Guy Scadding, and finally at the Royal Northern Hospital. During this period he passed the MRCP. He then went as a house surgeon to the Wingfield Morris Orthopaedic Hospital in Oxford tutored by G R Girdlestone and Sir Herbert Seddon, Nuffield Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, and found time to add the MD to his already impressive list of qualifications. Under the supervision of Florey and Girdlestone, he administered penicillin intravenously to a young boy with an infected hip joint, only the third patient to be treated, and the first to have a successful result. His next step was to gain a surgical registrar post at his alma mater with David Patey and A S Blundell Bankhart, and he was successful in a third postgraduate examination, the FRCS in 1942. He then joined the RAMC, rising to the rank of major. For the next four years, initially in North Africa and then in Italy, he had duties in general surgery and orthopaedics. Later, as a specialist plastic surgeon, he was attached to the 4th maxillofacial unit under Patrick Clarkson, a New Zealander by birth who had trained at Guy's Hospital, and in plastic surgery with Sir Harold Gillies. This small pioneering unit treated serious and complex injuries, including burns, with novel surgical techniques and achieved extraordinary results. This maxillofacial unit was extremely busy during the bloody battles of Monte Cassino and managed 5,000 casualties, including 3,000 maxillofacial injuries and 1,000 burns. To cope with such large numbers, they developed novel and aggressive strategies including early primary closure of missile wounds to the face, and early excision and skin grafting of large burns. Another remarkable feature of the unit's work was the quality of their data collection, which set a standard perhaps not realised for some 60 years. Rex Lawrie was mentioned in despatches in November 1945. He wrote papers on all these aspects of military surgery in the *Lancet* ('Primary closure of battle wounds of the face' Vol.245 No.6351 pp.625-6), the *British Dental Journal* ('Treatments of 1,000 jaw fractures' 1946 Feb;80:69) and the *British Journal of Surgery* ('The management and surgical resurfacing of serious burns' 1946 Apr;34:311-23). At the end of the war he served in Austria and, on returning to the UK, at the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot was consultant orthopaedic surgeon and under the supervision of Ronald Furlong. Following his demobilisation, he worked for a short time at the Middlesex Hospital, and then, in June 1948, was appointed as a consultant surgeon to Guy's Hospital and then as a paediatric surgeon to the Evelina Children's Hospital. He was an early protagonist of day-stay surgery in children, particularly those with hernias, and in 1964 wrote paper in the *Lancet* ('Operating on children as day-cases' Vol.284 No.7372 pp.1289-91) on this topic. He always maintained that one should never 'talk-down' to children, and regarded them as inexperienced adults. Were a young patient's birthday to occur while the child was in hospital, one of the cards would invariably have been signed by Rex. For his first 15 years he was first assistant to Sir Hedley Atkins, with whom he ran successful undergraduate and postgraduate teaching programmes, including a very popular final FRCS course. He wrote the popular Textbook of surgery (Oxford, Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1958) with his colleague Guy Blackburn, who had trained at Bart's but was on the staff at Guy's. He enjoyed examining in surgery as member of the Court of Examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons and also in ENT. His courteous and careful assessment of candidates was sought by the Universities of London, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and institutions abroad in Baghdad, Benghazi and Alexandria. He was a visiting fellow at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore. At times, when the answer the candidate gave was wrong, he would say: 'I never considered it that way!' Perhaps his lasting legacy is the large group of trainees, many now trainers themselves, who had their surgical experience under his close supervision. Not only did Rex Lawrie have excellent technical skills, he was also able to pass these on as he assisted his juniors with a minimum of fuss and difficulty. He was unflappable and his charming manner put them at ease with the words: 'take time to secure haemostasis while opening the abdomen, as you will be tired when closing'. He remained in touch with many of them and they continued to benefit from his wise advice. Recognising that climbing the career ladder was at times unfair and nepotistic, his dictum to trainees was 'the job they were destined to get was better than all those they did not'. At surgical meetings or 'grand rounds', Rex Lawrie was not the first to stand up with his opinion. But when others had promoted at length differing methods for solving a particular problem, he would eventually be invited to express a view. This took the form of a new insight into the problem or stating one of his *bon mots* - 'I don't think the body really notices any difference.' He was great supporter of the Friday morning 'mortality meetings'. He never seemed to age with the years, remaining youthful, slim and energetic. He eschewed hospital lifts to walk up flights of stairs, his staff often being 'more out of puff' than he was. But he retired early at the age of 60 years in 1977. An idle life was not for him: he went to Brunei for five years at the request of HM the Sultan as his personal physician and was also charged with building a new hospital. His wife took care of the Sultan's wife and the children of the royal palace. In 1941 Rex Lawrie married Jean Eileen Grant, a Royal Free graduate who was born in Southern Rhodesia in 1914, but moved with her family to England some four years later. She qualified in 1938 and had their first child when Rex was serving abroad in the 1st Army in North Africa and Italy. Not only did she bring up their eldest child as a single-handed mother, she also combined this with general practice in Woburn Sands. She suffered acute paralytic poliomyelitis in 1948 and had residual disability that forced her to give up general practice. She became well-known in medical politics, but continued a clinical interest in gynaecology at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital and in the community as a school doctor. She was honorary secretary of the Medical Women's Federation for 13 years, and later its president. She played a crucial role in influencing government policy to adopt flexible and part-time training, and in developing the 'retainer scheme', which enabled women to keep their hand in when family commitments were too demanding to pursue an active career. She served on the BMA council for many years and was appointed CBE in 1977. Rex and Jean's marriage was a very happy one, and their family home in Kent was a focus for many generations of medical students, graduates, contemporaries, friends and overseas visitors. Rex cared for her until she died on 14 May 2009 at the age of almost 94. Outside medicine, Rex was first and foremost a family man with a love of gardening and playing croquet. He was a member of the Junior Carlton Club from 1936 and served as chairman of Eynsford Village Society from 1964 to 1969. Of their four children, the oldest, Christina Janet Seymour Williams, followed her parents into medicine and, after training at Guy's Hospital, pursued a specialist career in rehabilitation. Alexander Grant Seymour Lawrie, the elder son, became an accountant. The second daughter, Katharine Jane Eleanor Seymour Tyler, was a personnel manager at the World Bank, and the youngest, James Cameron Fitzgerald Seymour Lawrie is treasurer at Christ Church, Oxford. The medical genes have been passed on: one granddaughter is in general practice and a second is studying medicine at Guy's, Kings and St Thomas'. Reginald Seymour (Rex) Lawrie died at home after a short illness on 15 January 2011. His four children survived him.