Humphrey William Elcock was a consultant otorhinolaryngologist in Brighton. He was born in Birmingham on 6 November 1937, the son of Alfred William Elcock, a headmaster, and Edith née Hendrick. He was educated at Adams School, Newport, Shropshire, and St Andrew's University. After junior posts in Dundee, Cardiff and then Bristol, he spent a year as the Conacher research fellow in Toronto in 1971. He returned to complete his training in otorhinolaryngology, and was appointed to Brighton in 1973. He was one of the first ENT surgeons to specialise in facial plastic surgery, to which he brought an artistic flair. He had a huge circle of friends and acquaintances outside medicine and was very well known around Brighton as a *bon viveur* and raconteur. He was captain of Brighton and Hove Golf Club and also chairman of the Hove Club for several years. He was also a keen photographer and fisherman. He married Aileen Davidson in 1961. They had one daughter and three sons, one of whom, David Humphrey, became a consultant anaesthetist. He died from carcinoma of the prostate on 21 October 1998.