Alexander Digges La Touche, the son of a general practitioner, was born at Ossett, Yorkshire, on 31 December 1899. On leaving Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield, he entered the Royal Naval Colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth before serving as an Executive Officer in the Royal Navy during the first world war. He retired as a Lieutenant RN in 1922 and became an undergraduate at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, before proceeding to Leeds for his clinical training. After taking the final Conjoint examination he was house surgeon and resident gynaecological officer at the General Infirmary, Leeds, and later assistant medical officer to the department of venereology. He then decided to take up radiotherapy and completed his Cambridge degrees after passing the DMR examination. He subsequently became director of the radiotherapy department at the General Infirmary, Leeds, and senior lecturer in radiotherapy at Leeds University. During the second world war he served in the medical division of the Royal Navy and was demobilised with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander. Digges La Touche was a keen skier, swimmer and araneologist and held a private pilot's licence. He died on 14 January 1981 and was survived by his wife, Joan Cotton Marshall, whom he married in 1927 and they had one son.