John Leonard Edmondson was a consultant surgeon for the South Tee-side Hospital group. He was born in Southport, Lancashire, on 2 August 1921, the son of Norman Edmondson, a civil servant, and Gertrude Ethel Edmondson (née Pringle). He was educated at Mount Hamilton and King George V Grammar schools in Southport, and then studied medicine at Liverpool University. He qualified MB ChB in 1944 with the Derby prize and gained his FRCS in 1954. Prior to his consultant appointment, he was a senior surgical registrar at Walton Hospital, Liverpool, a fellow in the department of surgery, University of Illinois, Chicago, and a captain in the RAMC. He was influenced by C A Wells and James Bagot Oldham at Liverpool. He was a member of the North of England Surgical Society. Outside medicine he was interested in golf, photography and fishing. In 1961 he married a Miss Conacher. They had two sons. John Leonard Edmondson died on 20 June 2013 aged 91.