Anthony (Tony) Dingley was born on 22 March 1922 at Leamington Spa in Warwickshire, the son of Eric Gordon Dingley, FRCS Edinburgh, senior surgeon at Warneford Hospital, Leamington Spa, and Marion (Moll) Bradshaw, a nursing sister in QARANC, who served in Iraq. His uncle, Allen Roy Dingley, was a consultant surgeon at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital in London. He was educated at the Leys School, Cambridge, and Queen's College, Cambridge, where he won a foundation scholarship in 1942 and was awarded first class honours in the natural science tripos. He then went to St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, the fourth generation of Dingleys to be trained there, and qualified in 1945, after winning the Bentley Prize. After junior appointments at St Bartholomew's with John Hosford and J B Hume he did his National Service in the RAMC in Germany from 1946 to 1948. He then demonstrated pathology for a year and in 1950 he was appointed surgical registrar at St Helier Hospital, Carshalton. From 1951 to 1954 he worked as senior surgical registrar at St Bartholomew's and from 1954 to 1958 at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Tottenham. He was appointed consultant general surgeon at Southend General Hospital (succeeding Rodney Maingot) in 1958, and worked there until his retirement in 1984. An anaesthetist who worked with him for twenty six years said, 'the salient feature of his operating was his speed and yet he never seemed to be hurrying, every movement achieving something. When anaesthetising an ill patient presenting as an abdominal or thoracic emergency I was always glad if Tony was the surgeon'. In 1951 he married Margaret, née Jenkins, who suffered near-blindness soon after their marriage, and who died of cancer in 1971. There were two children of the marriage, a son Christopher and a daughter Susan, who became a teacher. He married again in 1972 to Helen, née Rothnie, sister of Norman Rothnie FRCS, a general and vascular surgeon in Reading. Tony Dingley was a lifelong sailor who regularly sailed in Dutch, Belgian and French waters and who held a Yachtmaster's off-shore certificate. He named his last two boats *Soleus* and *Anconeus*, the latter being a 30-foot Westerly Berwick ketch. He and Helen shared a passion for off-shore sailing. He also enjoyed fly-fishing and was a first class shot. An enthusiastic cricketer, he used to open the batting for the St Bartholomew's XI with his uncle. He held an amateur radio licence, and a City and Guilds Radio Amateurs' examination certificate. He retired to live in Chard, Somerset, and died on 23 September 1992 aged 70, survived by his wife and the two children of his first marriage.