Thomas Tyrell King (known as Tom or TT) was born on 28 March 1930 in London, while his father was working in the UK. His mother, Nina Mary née Keynes, was a nurse whose father qualified in Cork, Ireland and then migrated to Australia, becoming a general practitioner in Nathalie, Northern Victoria. His father’s family had been surgeons in Stourbridge, Birmingham under the surname Freer during the 18th and 19th centuries. Two members of the family migrated to Melbourne six years after its founding. Thomas King, his father, was the first purely orthopaedic surgeon in Melbourne, a consultant at St Vincent’s Hospital, and a fellow of the college. From 1938 to 1947 Tom attended Xavier College, Melbourne. He then studied medicine at Melbourne University and St Vincent’s Hospital Medical School, graduating MB, BS in 1953. He later wrote that he developed an early interest in the nervous system as a result of the *remarkable* teaching of Professor Sydney Sunderland in the university anatomy department and was further inspired by Dr John Billing, the neurologist at St Vincent’s. He also acknowledged that Keith Henderson, a consultant neurosurgeon at the same hospital, was a *lifelong stimulus*. Advised by his father to continue his training in the UK, he did house jobs in neurosurgery at the Royal Marsden Hospital from 1955 to 1957, when he passed the fellowship of the college. The following year he joined the Guy’s Maudsley Neurosurgical Unit as a senior house officer, working with Murray Falconer and Peter Howard Schurr, before moving to the London Hospital where he stayed from 1958 to 1963 as registrar and senior registrar with Douglas William Claridge Northfield, another inspirational figure. He returned to Melbourne and St Vincent’s in 1963 as assistant neurosurgeon and, three years later, consultant neurosurgeon. He wrote that he found the hierarchical structure of the hospital uncongenial but that he learnt much about spinal surgery and head injuries. In 1967 he returned to the UK on Northfield’s retirement and became consultant neurosurgeon at the London. While there he struck up a fruitful relationship with Andrew Morrison, an ENT surgeon, on the diagnosis and treatment of acoustic nerve tumours, as he wrote, wresting the topic from the otologists. The surgery of these tumours and other neoplasms of the skull base became his special interest and the main subject of his contributions to the literature. He also developed techniques for epilepsy after cranial surgery, craniopharygioma in the third ventricle and the stabilisation of the rheumatic cervical spine. In 1995 he retired and wrote that he considered himself *a general neurosurgeon at a time when it was possible to cover all aspects except functional neurosurgery*. For a few years afterwards he did some consultancy and also medico-legal work. At the London he was chairman of the Theatre User’s Committee from 1978 to 1983 and for N. E. Thames he was chairman of the Regional Advisory Committee on Neurology and Neurosurgery. He was specialty advisor for N. E. Thames at the college in 1995. A member of the Society of British Neurosurgeons, he was their archivist from 1996 and was awarded their medal in 2009. A fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, he was president of the neurological section from 1991 to 1992 and he was also a corresponding member of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia. When young he had been a keen skier, giving up at the age of 40. He enjoyed reading, especially literature, history and biography. Enthusiastic about the history and topography of London, he was a member of the London Topographical Society. Visiting museums and art galleries and building model boats also gave him great pleasure. In 1962 he married Christine Elizabeth née Thwaite, who was a theatre sister. They had five children; the eldest, Andrew, became a surgeon in Manchester, Frances a surveyor, Jane a nurse, Anthony a sociologist and Richard an officer in the Royal Marines. Held in great esteem by his professional colleagues, he was recognised as being one of the founders of modern skull base surgery at a British Skull Base Society meeting the week after he died and they dedicated an annual lecture in his memory. Recognised as a kind and humble man, his son recounted a memory from his funeral by a former student nurse. She had confused him for a maintenance man called to change a light bulb and, showing him the problem, gave him the spare bulb. He replaced the bulb and then politely asked to see his patient. He died from renal failure secondary to metastatic prostate cancer on 17 January 2020 aged 89, survived by his children and 15 grandchildren.