Born on 4 May 1898 at Hornsey, Middlesex, the third son of Alick Wellstead Capener, an engineer, and Ada Isabella Tree, Norman Capener was one of six brothers, all of whom were educated at the City of London School through musical scholarships in the choir of the Temple Church, London, where, under Sir Walford Davies his love of music began. In 1917, after a period in the Inns of Court Training Battalion he was commissioned in the Royal Marines but because he was a medical student he was transferred to the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as Surgeon Sub-Lieutenant, a 'Surgeon-Probation', in April 1918. He qualified from St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1922 and subsequently held a number of appointments there as Luther Holden Research Fellow, demonstrator in anatomy and assistant in the surgical professorial unit. His work was particularly influenced by Sir Holburt Waring, Sir Girling Ball, Harold Wilson, Reginald Elmslie, George Gask and Geoffrey Keynes. He took the FRCS in 1924 and in 1926 he was invited to the University of Michigan as instructor of anatomy by the Dean of the Medical Faculty, Dr Hugh Cabot. He was later appointed instructor in surgery and then Assistant Professor (Orthopaedics) at the University Hospital before returning to England in 1931. While in the United States he worked with Fred Coller and Carl Badgley of Michigan and Robert Osgood in Boston. On his return he was appointed orthopaedic surgeon at the Princess Elizabeth Orthopaedic Hospital at Exeter and shortly after he was appointed the first orthopaedic surgeon to the newly established Mount Gold Orthopaedic Hospital at Plymouth. This was the beginning of a very long and distinguished career during which he built up an outstanding regional orthopaedic service in south west England with Exeter as its centre. He held consultant appointments at hospitals throughout Devon, organised outpatient clinics staffed by aftercare nursing sisters, many of whom he trained himself. Gradually 'Devonian orthopaedic services' as he liked to call his organisation, grew to achieve a national and international reputation for the quality of work, teaching and training service. He contributed over a hundred papers to medical literature, mainly on the surgery of the spine and the hip. In particular he will be remembered for his work on the treatment of tuberculosis of the spine by lateral rachitomy. During the second world war he was consultant advisor in orthopaedics for the South West Region and had charge of the orthopaedic section of the Emergency Hospital at Exminster, later moved to the Musgrove Hospital, Taunton. He was a member of the Royal Society of Medicine and of the Orthopaedic Section, of which he was successively honorary secretary and President. He was a member of the British Orthopaedic Association and served in a number of offices, including President 1958-60. From 1948 to 1966 he was a member of the editorial board of the *Journal of bone and joint surgery*. When the Medical Appeal Tribunals for Industrial Injuries were established by the Ministry of Pensions in 1948 he became a member and continued until 1968, and from 1968 to 1973 served as a member and sometimes chairman of Pension Appeals Tribunals under the Lord Chief Justice. Other bodies on which he served were the Empire Rheumatism Council, the South West Regional Hospital Board, the International Committee on Prosthetics and Orthotics, the National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases and he was Chairman of the Committee for Research into Appliances for the Disabled, of the Institute of Sports Medicine and of the British Standards Institution Commission on Surgical Implants. At the College he was Hunterian Professor in 1941 and Arris and Gale lecturer in 1946. Later on he was Robert Jones lecturer 1958 and Bradshaw lecturer 1972. He was a member of Council from 1961 to 1973 and for the last three years was Senior Vice-President. His Vicary Lecture in 1971 on Chaucer and John of Gaddesden drew on his extensive knowledge of history and literature, as well as medicine. During his time on Council he served as a member, later Chairman of the Library and Publications Committee and after his retirement remained Honorary Curator of Portraits and Works of Art until shortly before his death. In 1963 Capener was appointed Chairman of a College committee set up to study problems relating to accident prevention and of the convention on this subject held at the College that year. It was largely due to his efforts that in the following year, 1964, the Medical Commission on Accident Prevention was founded and he was first its scientific director and later its Chairman. In 1966 he was made CBE. Capener had many interests outside medicine, but music, art and literature were predominant. He was a talented painter and a discerning collector of contemporary British art. For many years he was an artist member of the Penwith Society of Artists where he exhibited under the name of Norman Caerne. His friendship with Dame Barbara Hepworth stimulated his interest in sculpture, for which he showed a great talent. He submitted an entry in the controversial 'Unknown Political Prisoner' competition of 1953 which he left to the College and in 1969 the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery mounted a retrospective exhibition of his work. It was through Norman Capener that Barbara Hepworth was able to make a series of drawings of surgeons at work at the Princess Elizabeth Orthopaedic Hospital at Exeter. The last of these was an oil painting *Concourse*, painted on a panel that Capener had given her and which he formally presented to the College in 1969. A bronze cast of his hand, also by Barbara Hepworth, was left to the College in his will. He loved the Devon countryside and Exeter and he was involved in many local societies and organisations. The cathedral and its library was one of his particular interests and he and his wife took a great delight in acting as cathedral guides, sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm with the many visitors. In his younger days he was a very fast motorist with a passion for vintage Bentleys. In 1922 he married Marion Constance Vera Clarke, MRCS, LRCP, the daughter of Captain J Stanhope Clarke, RN. There were four children of the marriage, one son who became a civil engineer and three daughters, the middle of whom entered medicine. After the death of his first wife in 1970 he married Elsa May Batstone who survived him. He became ill while organising a visit of the College to Exeter in December 1974, but as he was unable to attend the meeting a special presentation of the College's gold medal was made to him at his bedside in the Princess Elizabeth Orthopaedic Hospital. He died on 30 March 1975.