Douglas Freebody was a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Kingston Hospital. He was born in Woolwich, London, on 19 April 1911, the son of a successful tailor, and attended the City of London School, before entering Guy’s Hospital Medical School, which he represented at hockey and boxing. After qualifying he filled a number of junior surgical posts around London, and in the early part of the war worked for Burns and Young at the major casualty hospital at Botley’s Park, so beginning an orthopaedic career. In 1946 service with the RAMC took him to Egypt and Palestine, where he ran the orthopaedic services at Fayid and Bir Yaacov respectively. On his release from the Army in 1948 Douglas was mentioned in despatches for distinguished service, and was soon appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to Croydon General Hospital, East Surrey Hospital Redhill, and later the Kingston and Richmond Area Health Authority. There he concentrated his activities and made a major contribution to orthopaedic surgery, devising an anterior transperitoneal approach for fusion of the lower lumbar spine. This he demonstrated widely at home and abroad and was the subject of his contribution to the third edition of *Contemporary operative surgery* in 1979 and of an educational film awarded a silver medal by the BMA. He was a founder member of the International Society of the Lumbar Spine. Douglas Freebody was a dignified man with a great sense of humour, devoted to his family, his dogs and his garden, where he was an expert on orchids. He died from heart failure on 12 October 2005 at the age of 94, and is survived by his wife, Yvonne, a former physiotherapist at Middlesex Hospital whom he met in Egypt during the war, and their children.