Gerard Giles Penman was educated at Sherborne School, Pembroke College, Cambridge, and St Thomas's Hospital, London. During the first world war he served in the Royal Field Artillery, 1917-19. After qualifying in medicine and passing through training appointments in ophthalmology, he was soon appointed to the staff of the Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital and for some years was ophthalamic surgeon to the Royal Northern, Great Ormond Street and Acton Hospitals, and the Royal Hospital for Incurables, Putney. In 1935 he became surgeon to the ophthalmic departments at St Thomas's, and, when the two London ophthalmic hospitals merged after the war, he was appointed consultant at Moorfields Eye Hospital. He was a member of the executive committee of the Royal National Institute for the Blind. Partly on grounds of health he decided to retire earlier than expected and he settled in Sherborne where he spent much of his later years helping his old school and the Abbey. He died on 21 November, 1982, aged 83 years. His wife shortly predeceased him. They had three sons, one of whom qualified in medicine.