Alberto Laurence was a distinguished Argentinian coloproctologist. He was born in Buenos Aires on 17 July 1915, the son of Hector Ernesto Laurence, a dentist, and Dora Catalina Laurence née Small, who died when he was a child. The family had ties to the UK: his maternal great grandfather, Harry Wells, was a vice consul in Argentina and his father was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Laurence was educated at St George’s College in Quilmes, a province of Buenos Aires, and then at the National School Domingo Faustino Sarmiento. He went on to study medicine at the University of Buenos Aires, qualifying in 1941. He carried out his internship at the Ramos Mejia Hospital, Buenos Aires and then joined the staff of the British Hospital of Buenos Aires. He was an assistant surgeon at the hospital for 22 years, then chief of the surgical service for 16 years. For two years, he was a member of the committee of management. His initial interest was in vascular surgery; in 1949, he edited a textbook on varicose veins *Varices del miembro inferior* (Buenos Aires, El Ateneo), which ran to three editions. He later transferred to coloproctology and co-edited two colorectal textbooks, one on the cancer of the rectum and sigmoid colon with Allan Murray (1967) and one on diverticular disease of the colon with Edward Donnelly (1979). He was president of the Sociedad Argentina de Coloproctología in 1954 and of the Sociedad Argentina de Gastroenterología in 1965, of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Proctología in 1972, the Academia Argentina de Cirugía in 1978 and the Asociación Argentina de Cirugía in 1982. In 2011, he received the award of master of coloproctology from the Sociedad Argentina de Coloproctología. He was a founding member and, in 1986, vice president of the International Society of University Colon and Rectal Surgeons. He was made an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1989. In Latin America, he received awards from Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and Peru. In 1987, he edited a book on distinguished Argentinian surgeons *Grandes figuras de la cirugica Argentina* (Editorial LEA). In retirement, he wrote an autobiography *Recuerdos de un cirujano* (Buenos Aires, Ediciones Pasco, c.2003). He married Marta Maria Oucinde in 1943 and they had two children, Gloria and Alex, and grandchildren and great grandchildren. Alberto Laurence died on 16 January 2012 at the age of 96.