Arthur Hume was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Colchester from 1962 until he retired in 1989. He was born in Hornsey, north London, the son of two teachers. His father became director of education for the Borough of Finchley. His father's family were Londoners, from Tottenham, while his mother (née Parkinson) was from Sheffield. There was no family connection with the medical profession. Arthur was educated at St Mary's Primary School in Hornsey and later at the Stationers' Company's School, also in Hornsey, and Christ's College, Finchley. For the first MB he studied at North London Polytechnic. He then went on to the London Hospital Medical College in 1943 and qualified in 1948. He held house officer posts at the London and at King George Hospital, Ilford. The latter was a mixed surgical job involving some general surgery, orthopaedics, ENT and gynaecology. He worked for A M A ('Dintie') Moore, a general surgeon also on the staff of the London who had a major interest in orthopaedics, Neil Frederick Sinclair and James Cecil Hogg, an ENT surgeon from Bart's. He spent his National Service as a junior surgical specialist at Catterick, where his work was predominately orthopaedic. Much of the general surgery was done by Geoffrey Slaney, a future president of the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1952 Arthur returned to the East End of London as a house physician at St George in the East Hospital, where he worked for, among others, William O'Donovan, a consultant physician, dermatologist and former Conservative MP for Mile End. He had been attracted to orthopaedics as a student, largely he said by the charismatic Sir Reginald Watson-Jones, who he admired for his capacity for hard work and his easy manner with patients and colleagues of all disciplines and grades. Having gained some further experience with Oliver Vaughan-Jackson in Rochester, he went back to London as an orthopaedic registrar, working initially at Black Notley Hospital. This was a prewar sanatorium to which had been added a large Emergency Medical Service unit in the early years of the war. After the war, many London Hospital orthopaedic patients were admitted to the hospital under the care of Denis Dunn on behalf of Henry Osmond-Clarke, Vaughan-Jackson or William Alexander ('Scottie') Law, each of whom visited the hospital monthly. By this time Arthur had married Lilian Roberts, a staff nurse at the London. They went on to have three children. After a further period in Whitechapel and having achieved his fellowship, he took up a post as orthopaedic senior registrar at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, working mainly with Richard Butler, again a very influential figure. That their respect was mutual is illustrated by the story that he recounted of his final day in Cambridge, when Butler told him as they parted to look in the boot of his car when he got home. When he did he found a bottle of champagne, a brace of pheasants and a second edition of a book by William Hunter. In 1962 Arthur was appointed as a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Colchester alongside Denis Dunn. The orthopaedic beds, including those for trauma, were still at Black Notley. Outpatient clinics were held in Colchester, Harwich, Halstead and Black Notley (Denis Dunn also held clinics in Clacton). As one of only two orthopaedic surgeons in a widespread rural area his work was inevitably varied and included all aspects of adults and children's trauma and elective orthopaedics, though Arthur took responsibility for children with club foot and other lower leg deformities while Denis Dunn dealt with congenital dislocation and other disorders of the hip. The connection with the London Hospital remained strong and for a while Arthur held an honorary appointment at St Bartholomew's in an attempt to create a similar link there, but the arrangement fizzled out. Arthur had a quiet, authoritative and reassuring manner, especially valuable when dealing with worried parents and grandparents. He was popular with his colleagues, both in the hospital and in general practice, and was a reliable source of wisdom when a second opinion was required. He was a respected teacher, largely by example, not only of orthopaedics but of how to be a caring and considerate doctor and colleague. He involved himself in hospital management, becoming chairman of the local medical executive committee. He was a member of the Colchester Medical Society, the second oldest such organisation in the country and was its president in 1989. He was a bibliophile and became the society's librarian and keeper of the archives, now cared for by the University of Essex Library. Outside work he was a devoted family man and he and his wife were enthusiastic members of the local NADFAS (National Association of Decorative and Fine Art Societies) group, travelling with them and other organisations on cultural trips around the world. Sadly Lilian became ill and died within a few years of his retirement, but for some time he continued to travel and to attend meetings, where he regularly gave the vote of thanks to visiting speakers, a task for which he was always well prepared. He enjoyed doing the relevant research. In later years his mobility became severely restricted, but he remained mentally very alert and, with the help of his family and a team of devoted carers, he was able to continue living at home. Arthur Hume died on 5 October 2017. He was 93.