Roy Ivor Harding Whitlock was a consultant oral and maxillofacial surgeon in Belfast. He was born in London on 23 April 1916, the son of James Bertie Whitlock, an insurance clerk, and Marjorie Jeanne Whitlock née Crane. He attended St Paul’s School in London, where he was a classical scholar and excelled at sport, and went on to study dentistry at King’s College Medical School. After service during the Second World War in the dental branch of the RAF at Hawkinge, Kent and in India, he was a senior registrar at East Grinstead Hospital under the pioneering maxillofacial surgeon Sir Terence Ward. In 1953 Whitlock was appointed to his consultant post in Belfast, where his unit developed innovative techniques in facial reconstruction. He made his name as one of the first surgeons in the UK to develop the osteotomy technique for a protruding jaw. He went on to create various surgical instruments, including a horseshoe headrest used to keep the head still during operations. He trained consultants in Belfast and Londonderry and helped establish the specialty in the Irish Republic. When the Troubles began in 1968, he was at the forefront of treating casualties with bomb blast and gunshot wounds to the face, achieving excellent cosmetic results. He also worked with the Army forensic laboratory in Belfast to study the effects of high velocity bullets and plastic bullets on the face. He served on the regional hospital board for Northern Ireland until 1974. At the Royal College of Surgeons of England, he was the Charles Tomes lecturer in 1979. He was on the board of examiners of the Faculties of Dental Surgeons at the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of England and in Ireland. He was awarded an OBE in 1981, the year of his retirement. He married Lilian Weston in 1941. Whitlock was a passionate tennis player: he died on 24 July 2004 after a game of tennis. He was 88.