Albert Boswell Nutt was born in Sheffield on 7 July 1898, the only son of Ernest Smith Nutt. He had the essential virtue of humility, particularly in his approach to the treatment of his patients, following the classical tradition of relating their ophthalmological state to the whole body condition. After leaving King Edward VII School in Sheffield, Bertie, as he was called by his friends, studied medicine at the Universities of Sheffield and London, becoming MSc in Sheffield in 1922 where, in the following year, he was awarded the Clinical Gold Medal in medicine and surgery. He was honorary ophthalmic surgeon to the Sheffield Royal Infirmary 1927-48 and to the Children's Hospital 1938-48. It was there that he developed a great interest in orthoptics and muscular anomalies of the eye movements and delivered many papers at meetings and to the journals on these subjects. He took a great interest in the administration and progressive development of the orthoptic profession and held the position of Chairman of the British Orthoptic Board from 1958 to 1970. He maintained this interest long after he had retired from the active staff of the United Sheffield Hospitals in 1963. He was a member of the Council of the Faculty of Ophthalmology from 1947 and was President of the Council from 1963 to 1965. He was also Vice-President of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom, a council member and Master of the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress in 1961-62, which position gave him especial pleasure, and was appointed an honorary member in 1977. He represented the Faculty of Ophthalmology on the Royal College of Surgeons' Council for five years, was an examiner for the English FRCS for several years and Hunterian Professor of the College in 1954. In fact there are few committees involved in ophthalmological affairs which did not at some time have the advantage of his advice. He gave singular service to his native city in which he was widely loved. He was made a member of the Sheffield Town Trustees and was, at the time of his death, Town Collector (Chairman). He was made an Hon LLD by Sheffield University in 1974. A slipped disc in his early sixties forced him to give up golf, of which he had been a devotee, and he devoted more time to his beautiful garden at Thornsett Dore, converting it from a well-kept Victorian garden to one full of choice and often rare trees and shrubs, underplanted with masses of bulbs. The garden was, until recently, internationally famous for its snowdrops. A kind and most understanding person, he was not often deterred from the path which he chose to tread. In 1946 he married Olive Margaret Robson, and they had a daughter and two sons. He died on 27 February 1978, aged 79 years.