Born in South Africa, he was educated at the Diocesan College (Bishops) at Rondebosch, where he excelled as an all-round sportsman, and won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford. Here he graduated in 1938, and also boxed for the university. He took his clinical training at Guy's Hospital, qualified in 1941, served as house surgeon, and then went home to South Africa. After war service in Italy with the South African Medical Corps, he came back to Guy's as surgical registrar in the genito-urinary department, under W D Doherty, FRCS. He took the Fellowship in 1949 though not previously a Member of the College, and then went home to practise as a urologist at Palmyra Road, Newlands, Cape Town. In the course of eighteen months he had begun to establish himself as an excellent professional man, with wide sporting and cultural interests. He was a convinced Liberal, and took an active interest in the improvement of the social condition of the less privileged groups in South Africa. "Allie" Albers was killed in a climbing accident on Table Mountain on 24 March 1951. He had married in Cape Town cathedral in July 1950 Prunella (Stack), widow of Lord David Douglas-Hamilton. Her first husband, a brother of the Duke of Hamilton, had been killed on active service in the Royal Air Force in 1944, leaving two sons. As Prunella Stack she had founded the Women's League of Health and Beauty. Albers was survived by his wife and his mother,