Andrew Elkington was a consultant ophthalmologist in Southampton and one of the founders of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists. He was born on 12 December 1935 in Newport, Shropshire, into a medical family; his ancestors had been doctors since the eighteenth century. His father, George Ernest Elkington, was a general practitioner. His mother, Kathleen Mary Elkington née Budgen, was the daughter of a minister of the Church of England. He studied at Repton School and then read medicine at Clare College, Cambridge, and St Thomas's Hospital Medical School. After qualifying in 1960, he held junior posts at St Thomas' Hospital, briefly worked in general practice in Hawkhurst, Kent, and was then a senior house officer in the department of obstetrics at Southmead Hospital, Shoreham-by-Sea. In 1964 he went to Canada, where he was a medical officer for the International Grenfell Association, which provided medical services to fishermen in Labrador and Newfoundland. In Canada he met Peter Watson, an ophthalmologist, and was inspired to train in this specialty. He returned to the UK in August 1965, briefly became a locum registrar in the department of orthopaedics, Royal South Hants Hospital, and then trained in ophthalmology in Southampton and at Westminster and Moorfields. In 1974 he was appointed as a consultant at Southampton Eye Hospital and as a senior lecturer (and subsequently professor) in ophthalmology at Southampton University. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a member of the Court of Examiners from 1984 to 1989 and a member of the Council from 1994 to 1995. When the College of Ophthalmologists was created in 1988, Elkington was the founding secretary. He later became president. He contributed to more than 70 publications and co-wrote *The ABC of eyes* (British Medical Association, 1988), a leading work on treating eye conditions used in general practice, *Clinical optics* (Oxford, Blackwell Scientific, 1984), a book for optometrists, and *Ophthalmology for nurses* (London, Croom Helm, 1986). In retirement he was chairman of the British Council for the Prevention of Blindness, a lay member of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and president of the ophthalmic section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was appointed a CBE in 1996. He died on 11 September 2014, aged 78, and was survived by his wife Patricia (née Wright) and by their four sons, two of whom are consultants.