Born on Christmas Day 1902, the son of Henry Thomas Blake and Maud MacIntyre, Henry Elliot Blake was educated at Dean Close, Cheltenham, Queen's College, Cambridge, and St Thomas's Hospital, London. His father was a member of the Institute of Water Engineers and a County Councillor and Justice of the Peace in Herefordshire. His mother was a Scot, "half Elliott and half Maclntyre" and Henry was delivered by Doctor Elliott Price in the Cottage Hospital at Ross-on-Wye. He qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1929 and held resident posts in Reading, before becoming clinical assistant to the ear nose and throat and pathology departments at St Thomas's. He was appointed one of the two resident medical officers at the London Clinic in 1932 and there he developed an interest in plastic surgery, influenced by Sir Harold Gillies, Archibald McIndoe, Rainsford Mowlem and T P Kilner. He left the London Clinic in 1935 to become chief assistant to the department of plastic surgery at St Thomas's under T P Kilner, and he took a consulting room in Devonshire Place. He joined the RAMC soon after the outbreak of war in 1939 and was one of those evacuated from Dunkirk, returning to military duties in England and passing the Edinburgh and English Fellowship examinations in 1941. Soon afterwards, he embarked in a troopship for Singapore and was wounded in both feet when the convoy was under fire. After serving in India, he came back to England in 1944 and was posted to Stoke Mandeville where he worked again with Sir Harold Gillies until his release from the Army. He was appointed the first honorary plastic surgeon in St George's Hospital in 1948 and was later consultant plastic surgeon to the Victoria Hospital for Children, Tite Street, the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children, Brighton, and Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton. He was senior surgeon to the Ministry of Pensions, a founder member of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons and President of the Section of Plastic Surgery at the Royal Society of Medicine. He was a skilled and careful surgeon and he devised an operation for the reconstruction of the penile urethra in hypospadias, contributing four chapters, including one on that problem, to Rob and Smith's *Operative surgery*. A founder member of the Medical Art Society, his paintings were exhibited by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Royal Academy of Arts, and some still adorn the corridors of the London Clinic. He was noted for his kindness, generosity, and wit as an after dinner speaker, many of his best stories being told against himself, and he was a keen member of the Royal Ashdown Forest and the Berkshire Golf Clubs. In 1980, he wrote to the Secretary of the College asking that his name be recorded as Elliott-Blake: "After I had resigned from being the first RMO of the London Clinic, I set up as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon in rooms in Devonshire Place. Unfortunately, another Dr H E Blake carried on his practice in Gloucester Place at the same number as my rooms in Devonshire Place. I had a telephone call from a young lady wanting an urgent appointment and operation and when I asked her what was her trouble she said 'the same as before', I said I think you are speaking to the wrong doctor H E Blake and I called his number. His secretary answered and I hear him shout 'hold it, I want to speak to that fellow!'. He then said he thought I was giving his address to various tradesmen to whom I owed money, tailors, shoemakers, etc, as he had several importuning letters asking for payment, and he intended to write to the Royal Society of Medicine reporting my misbehaviour. I said I thought in the circumstances we should both write to the RSM! Doctor H E Blake of Gloucester place left London within a fortnight and has never been hear of since, at any rate by me." Elliott-Blake was an excellent host, whether at a quick luncheon of smoked salmon and sherry in his consulting rooms or at an elegant dinner at home. In 1945, he married Mary Violet, former wife of the 3rd Baron Swaythling, and daughter of Major Levy, DSO, and the Hon Mrs Ionides. He died on 7 October 1983, in his 81st year, survived by his wife.