George Dorling was born in 1905 in Buckhurst Hill, Essex, the son of Arthur Whayman Dorling, secretary to the Congregational Church Building Society, and his wife Jane Elizabeth, née Passfield. He was at school in Loughton before entering the London Hospital Medical School where he was awarded the Treves Prize in practical surgery, the Sutton Prize in pathology, Arnold Thompson Prize in medicine, and several others including the Nelson Prize in practical medicine. He was influenced in his training by Sir James Walton and Grey Turner before his final appointment as a consultant to the Cheltenham General and Gloucester Royal Hospitals. During the second world war he served in the Emergency Medical Service in London. In 1937 he married Miss Bing and they had four sons, one of whom, David Michael, is in general practice in Oxford. His main hobby was landscape gardening. He died in 1990.