Robert Ellis Gibbins was born in Birmingham on 29 July 1914, the son of David Gibbins, an engineer, and his wife Ethel Emilie, née Rohrbach. He was educated at a number of different schools and at Birmingham University Medical School, where he qualified MB ChB in 1938. After resident jobs at the Queen's and the Queen Elizabeth Hospitals he joined the RAMC, in which he served as captain throughout the war. He started his surgical training in the army and continued it in Birmingham after demobilization under the influence of Mr Scott Mason and Mr R K Debenham. He passed his FRCS in 1947 and two years later was appointed consultant surgeon at the Kidderminster and Bromsgrove Hospital, where he was to spend thirty effective and satisfying years. He was the founder of the modern surgical service at this hospital and at his retirement a plaque was unveiled which recorded the naming of the new surgical block after him. After his formal retirement he continued to undertake surgery for rheumatoid deformities of elderly hands and amused himself at home by repairing ancient clocks, at which he became very skillful. He married Dr Pamela Aviss in 1949 and they had four children: their two sons were general practitioners and their daughters became a nurse and an architect respectively. He died on 31 July 1995, survived by his wife, children and eleven grandchildren.