Roy Routledge was born in Bexhill-on-Sea on 10 May 1918, the son of Robin Coghill Horner Routledge, an engineer, and Gwyneth May, née Davies. He was educated at Bexhill-on-Sea Grammar School and St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he represented his medical school as a flyweight boxer. He qualified in 1942 and in the same year married Patsy Bates, the sister of a school friend, so beginning a lasting and happy marriage spanning more than fifty years. After leaving Bart's he served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve for five years on naval escort duties in the Atlantic and Far East. After the war he spent two years in general practice, but his ambitions always lay with surgery. He obtained his first experience of surgery with Rainsford Mowlem at Hill End Hospital, St Alban's, and of burns work at Birmingham Accident Hospital in the MRC Research Unit. His training included the posts of registrar at Great Ormond Street Hospital and surgical registrar at Folkestone. He became a Fellow of the College in 1950 and was appointed senior registrar in plastic surgery at Frenchay Hospital in 1952. He developed an interest in cancer of the head and neck while he was working at Frenchay and was later to broaden his experience in this field by taking up a WHO Fellowship in Copenhagen in 1958, working with Siems Siemssen. In 1961 he was appointed consultant and continued to develop his interests, teaming up with Jack Ross, his colleague in oral surgery. In 1980 he was elected President of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons. In 1981 he was awarded the third Stein Lectureship of the Danish Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. For relaxation Routledge grew orchids, painted, read and spent time on his canal boat. He died on 26 May 1995 survived by his wife, a son, Kit, who is an architect, a daughter, Gabrielle, who is a secretary, and four grandchildren, Tom, Lucy, Hannah and Joshua.