Robert Peter Craig was born on 24 June 1940 in Jesmond, Newcastle. He was the son of Robert Theodore Gilpin Craig, a general practitioner (GP), and his wife Jessie née McKinstry. His grandfather Theodore had also been a GP and was a medical officer of health. After attending Ascham House Preparatory School in Gosforth, he was educated at George Watson’s Academy in Edinburgh. He studied medicine at Durham University graduating MB, BS in 1964 and did various house jobs including working as house physician to the professor of medicine. He was commissioned into the Royal Regiment of Artillery in 1958 and then joined the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) as a medical cadet in 1963. A regular commission in the RAMC followed in 1967. He passed the fellowship of the college in 1971 and worked as a senior research associate at Newcastle University where he gained his MD in 1987. At the Royal Army Medical College he was a senior lecturer from 1983 to 1986. During his army career he was a consultant in general surgery from 1978 to 1994 and Queen’s Honorary Surgeon (QHS) from 1992 to 1994. He retired in 1994 with the rank of Major General, having been Director of Defence and Army Surgery and then Commander Medical of the United Kingdom Land Forces. After leaving his military career, he worked as a consultant in accident and emergency medicine at Wansbeck General Hospital from 1994 to 1996. The following year he joined the pensions appeals tribunals and the appeals service as a medical member sitting in a judicial capacity. He also wrote many expert medicolegal reports on clinical problems for a variety of lawyers and agencies. At the college he provided FRCS courses and was involved in the Bicentenary celebrations giving a Hunterian Bicentenary lecture in 1993. He served on numerous medical committees and was chairman of the Queen Mary’s Roehampton Trust. Outside medicine he had been a keen motor rally driver, achieving national level in the 1960s, and was Brunei motor sports champion in 1967. He also played squash to corps level when young and was a keen golfer describing his handicap as *11 to infinity*. Bridge was another enthusiasm, as was travelling, and for some years he was secretary to the Travelling Surgical Society of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He also had a reputation as an entertaining raconteur. In a note on the cv form he submitted to the college he wrote of his career; *I suppose I am a polymath having been gunner officer, medical officer in Borneo, trainee and lecturer consultant general surgeon, senior staff officer, very senior medical advisor to the C in C and Army Board, A&E consultant, researcher and now a judge. I should like to be remembered for integrity and resigning from the RAMC because I was unprepared to even try to sell the proposed changes encapsulated in Dis.15 to my colleagues.* On 27 August 1971, he married Jean Toft, a lecturer. They had three children: Robert (born 4 February 1974) who became a law lecturer and barrister, Clare (b. 13 July 1975) a lecturer in histopathology at the Royal Free Hospital, and Ailsa (b. 30 December 1977) a fund manager at Rothschild’s Asset Management and HBOS. When he died at home in London on 10 October 2022 aged 82, he was survived by his wife, children and six grandchildren.