Tom Boulton was a pioneering anaesthetist, a senior consultant at Reading and a former president of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, who played a significant role in the establishment of the Royal College of Anaesthetists. He was born on 6 November 1925 in Bishop Auckland, County Durham. His father, George Boulton, was from a banking family; his mother, Mary Boulton née Warboys, was the daughter of a doctor. His parents divorced when he was six and he was largely brought up by his mother and grandmother. He attended Scarborough College and St Peter’s School, York, and then went on to Emmanuel College, Cambridge and St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School. He qualified in 1949. After house posts, he became a junior resident anaesthetist at Barts. In 1950 he carried out his National Service in Malaya during the communist insurgency, where he found himself the only anaesthetist with any training between Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. He also carried out some surgery and was responsible for dermatology and venereal diseases. He was mentioned in dispatches. In 1952 he returned to Barts as a senior resident and passed the diploma in anaesthesia final examination in May 1953. He was then appointed as a senior registrar to the specialist thoracic and neurosurgical units. He became a fellow of the Faculty of Anaesthetists of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1954. In 1956 he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship as a visiting instructor in anaesthetics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. On his return to the UK, he completed his final year of training at Southend Hospital under John Alfred Lee and then, in 1958, was appointed as a consultant at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading. In 1961 he was asked to return to Barts to help establish a cardiac unit and intensive care programme. He introduced many innovations, including resuscitation registrars, whose role was to revive patients anywhere in the hospital, and resuscitation boxes in each clinical area. He developed an interest in anaesthesia in developing countries and, in 1969, during the war in Vietnam, travelled to Saigon to work as a medic for Children’s Medical Relief International. He spent five months there as part of a team providing reconstructive surgery for children with war injuries and with cleft lips and palates. He also trained local anaesthetists. From 1964 Boulton was involved with the Association of Anaesthetists Great Britain and Ireland (AAGBI). Initially an assistant editor of *Anaesthesia*, after being appointed as editor-in-chief he asked Barts to reduce his clinical commitments. His request was refused, so he resigned and was appointed to a new, more flexible post in Reading as a senior anaesthetist. As well as establishing a day surgery unit in Reading, he was appointed to the Nuffield department of anaesthetics at Oxford with regular sessions there and was a clinical lecturer in anaesthetics at Oxford University. He was instrumental in the development of Oxford’s overseas and developing countries anaesthetic courses from 1975 until his retirement in 1990. He was president of the AAGBI from 1984 to 1986 and served on the council for 24 years. He was also the honorary archivist and wrote the definitive history of the association, which formed the basis of his MD thesis (*The Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland 1932-1992 and the development of the specialty of anaesthesia* London, Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, 1999). He was also president of the Society for the Advancement of Anaesthesia in Dentistry (from 1980 to 1982), of the anaesthesia section of the Royal Society of Medicine (from 1983 to 1984), of the Society of Dental Anaesthetists (from 1983 to 1985) and of the History of Anaesthesia Society (from 1988 to 1989). He was elected to the board of the Faculty of Anaesthetists at the Royal College of Surgeons of England and played a significant part in the transformation of the faculty into an independent college. When the new college was granted a royal charter in 1992, Boulton, who was interested in heraldry, helped design the new coat of arms. He was also elected as a fellow of the Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons to England in recognition of his contributions to outpatient dental anaesthesia. He was awarded the Territorial Decoration in 1967 for his long service with the Territorial Army and was appointed an OBE in 1991 for his services to medicine. In his retirement he enjoyed sailing on the Thames. In 1952 he married Helen Brown, a Barts nurse. They had three children, Angela, Adam and James. Boulton died on 1 July 2016 at the age of 90.