William Lamb, known as ‘Bill’, was a consultant oral and maxillofacial surgeon at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge and Peterborough District Hospital from 1971 to 2003. He was born in Charlton, London, to Harold Theodore Lamb, a captain in the Merchant Marine, and Rhoda Mary Lamb née Clark, a headteacher in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. In the Second World War, aged just six and a half, he lost his father but was very fortunate to go to school with his brother and cousins at The King’s School, Canterbury, due to the generosity of an uncle, who was responsible for the Photo-Me photography booths found at stations, post offices and the like, and the aircraft strobe navigation lights used on all aircraft. He greatly enjoyed his school days, soon rising to become a prefect. His education and upbringing there formed the backbone of his moral compass and his drive for excellence in all that he undertook. He qualified in dentistry and then medicine at Guy’s Hospital and, after junior appointments in these fields, including a stint as a casualty officer, he was appointed as a rotating senior registrar at the plastic and jaw injuries centre at the Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead and at Guy’s Hospital, London. In 1969 he was seconded for six months to Kaduna, Nigeria during the Biafran War to develop and run that country’s only maxillofacial surgery unit, which was attached to the Armed Forces Division 1 Base Hospital. In 1971 he was appointed as a consultant at Addenbrooke’s and Peterborough District hospitals and took on the task of establishing a maxillofacial surgery unit at Peterborough, with satellite units in Stamford, Wisbech, King’s Lynn, Papworth and Doddington. During the 1970s he advised on the design and later oversaw the commissioning of a new maxillofacial surgery department at Peterborough, which incorporated for the first time a fully equipped day surgery unit, including a recovery ward within the maxillofacial surgery outpatient clinic suite. Bill was a member of several regional committees, including those for manpower and postgraduate education and in 1974 he was appointed as a regional postgraduate dean for the dental specialties, a post he held until 1980. He was very keen on the establishment of a clinical medical school at Addenbrooke’s, and he worked with many others to bring this about. In 1976 he started monthly joint head and neck oncology clinics at Peterborough and also regular joint meetings there with the histopathologists. Throughout his 32-year appointment to Addenbrooke’s and Peterborough District hospitals, he provided an on-call emergency service for patients who had sustained facial and jaw injuries across Cambridgeshire and south Lincolnshire. This extended further to his being one of the first consultants to volunteer for the Mid Anglia General Practitioner Accident Service (MAGPAS) Air Ambulance as medic 22 in the early 80s; his route between Cambridge and Peterborough being the source of most of his emergency casualties. He continued to volunteer for several years before work pressures made it impossible to predict his availability at short notice and he had to step back from regular service. Bill was elected president of the eastern counties branch of the British Dental Association in 1982, a position he was very proud to hold. Nearing retirement, he undertook a master’s degree in medical law at the University of Hertfordshire; he graduated in 2001 with much pride, somewhat raising the average age of the graduation ceremony. He spent his 20-year retirement in the Rutland county hamlet of Brooke. Bill died on 2 November 2023 aged 87. He will be sadly missed by his widow Margaret (née Sellin), sons Henry and Edward and his four grandchildren. His relaxed and friendly manner, his communication skills, wide experience and expertise will be greatly missed, especially by his head and neck cancer patients, with whom he developed a special relationship.