Dennis Henry George Walker was born in Thames Ditton, Surrey, on 17 January 1917, the eldest son of Thomas Presland Walker, a bank official and Edith Mildred Walker, née Passey. He attended Clare House School, Beckenham, Kent, and Eltham College, Mottingham. He studied medicine at King's College and King's College Hospital and while attending the latter became casualty officer and house surgeon. While at King's he met Hamilton Bailey and later contributed some chapters to his book *Emergency surgery*. He was then appointed consultant orthopaedic and traumatic surgeon at Ashford Hospital, Ashford, Middlesex. During the second world war he served as a Major in the RAMC. In 1941 he married Miss Ostler and they had two daughters; one became a state registered nurse and the other a physiotherapist. His son-in-law J B King is also a Fellow of the College. He was an active member of the Freemasons for many years and listed his hobbies as interior decorating, shooting and oil painting. He contributed two papers to the *Lancet*, one entitled *Colles' fracture of the radius* (1952) and one on *Cortisone and closed crush injuries of the hand* (1955). He died on 20 July 1979, aged 63.