Ralph Harrison Gardiner studied medicine at Oxford University, King's College Hospital, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and in Vienna. After an early appointment at Grimsby District Hospital in the late 1930s he moved to Buckinghamshire where he spent the rest of his career, eventually becoming senior consultant surgeon to the Aylesbury Group of Hospitals. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and a member of the Sections of Surgery and Proctology. In 1977 he retired and he died on 30 December 1989, aged 80 years, survived by his wife Molly, sister Doreen and grandchildren, Sarah and Nicholas.