Clive Charlton established himself as a leading expert and clinician in the field of urology, latterly on his establishment of a department of urology at the Royal United Hospital (RUH) in Bath, having qualified and trained at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, as well as undertaken a research fellowship at the University of Kentucky, USA. He was born on 30 September 1932 in Sutton, Surrey, the son of Harold Arthur Charlton, a chartered secretary, and Hilda Charlton née White, a housewife, and spent much of his early childhood in Lima, Peru, before being sent to board at King’s College, Taunton. On leaving school in 1950, having achieved the accolades of captain of the first XV and house captain, he studied as an undergraduate at St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College from 1952 to 1958. Following graduation, his medical training started in earnest, with a three-month assignment as a house surgeon to Sir James Paterson Ross, director of the surgical unit at Barts. Clive was also a house physician to Eric Scowen, director of the medical unit at Barts, as well as John William Aldren Turner in the neurology department. Spreading his medical repertoire still further during this period of learning, he was also a house surgeon in the Barts ENT department up to the end of 1959. And it was at this juncture that he met his soon-to-be wife, Jennifer Price, whilst she was a junior sister in the ENT department at Hill End Hospital in St Albans. Clive’s career then continued its trajectory with a senior house officer post in the orthopaedic and casualty departments at Barnet General Hospital from November 1961 to April 1962. Then, from June 1962 to May 1963, he was a junior registrar in general surgery at Barts with Gerard William Taylor and Alec Badenoch. This latter figure was to play a significant role in Clive’s subsequent medical and professional progression. The subsequent years demonstrated a breadth of learning and understanding, which was to stand him in good stead for the challenges to come. He was a registrar at Chase Farm Hospital, Enfield, then a urological surgical registrar at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith. This led to a senior surgical registrar position with Alec Badenoch (by now the surgeon-in-charge of the urological department at Barts), alongside Ian Todd and James Robinson – an illustrious trio with whom to learn and work. The next stepping stone was a short tenure as a resident surgical officer at St Paul’s Hospital and the Institute of Urology at the University of London. Clive then pursued a diversion from this linear career path by taking up a research fellowship within the division of urology, University of Kentucky Medical School, Lexington, under the chairmanship of Ben Eiseman, from August 1965 to April 1966. The fellowship entailed a wide array of laboratory and clinical work, all with direct relevance to his core urological interests and preoccupations. Jennifer’s evident aversion to iced tea and President Johnson’s pending conscription of surgeons to the Vietnamese theatre of war may have contributed to his early return to the UK. Regardless, he achieved the coveted position of consultant surgeon within the department of urology at Barts in June 1968, attracting the following compensation: ‘The whole-time figure upon which your part-time salary will be based is £3,200 a year’. According to the roster set out in his letter of appointment, this sum was based upon two mornings and four afternoons each week at Barts, which could reasonably be assumed to be around half-time work. He held this position for four years before assuming the mantle of consultant urologist at the Royal United Hospital, Bath, from September 1972 onwards. This position also involved establishing the department of urology from scratch. During these peak years of his career, specifically 1972 to 1994, he not only built a highly successful unit at the RUH but also took his surgical skills beyond Bath and out into the depths of Somerset and Wiltshire, undertaking domiciliary and hospital care in far flung towns such as Devizes, Shepton Mallet and Warminster. And it was during these years and endeavours when his advanced driving skills – predominantly honed in hopelessly under-powered Renaults and Volvos – became legendary on the highways and byways of southwest England, not least to the Avon and Somerset Constabulary. However, he compensated for this lack of mechanical horsepower by locating his private consulting rooms within some of the finest Georgian buildings to be found anywhere in the country, firstly at 18 The Circus, Bath, and subsequently at 7 Great Pulteney Street, in that same fair city. Over and above his surgical skills, Clive also undertook a significant number of academic and teaching positions. At the start of his career, he was a junior lecturer in the department of anatomy at University College London (UCL). And latterly (in 1984) he became an honorary senior clinical lecturer at the Institute of Urology, UCL. He also sat on the examination board for the diploma in urology certification within the Institute of Urology. And from 1988 to 1994 (his retirement) he was a member of the court of examiners at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. His teaching career spanned undergraduate preclinical teaching within the department of anatomy at UCL, as well as teaching undergraduates at Barts in general surgery (from 1962 to 1967), and urology at the University of London (from 1968 onwards). At a postgraduate level, he taught the Royal College of Surgeons of England’s course at both Barts and the RUH in Bath. And he was an accredited lecturer in courses organised by the Institute of Urology and the British Postgraduate Medical Federation. Clive was a member of the council and subsequently an honorary editorial secretary for the British Association of Urological Surgeons and a council member of the section of urology, Royal Society of Medicine. He contributed to the congress meetings of the Société Internationale d’Urologie in Amsterdam (1973), Johannesburg (1976) and Buenos Aires (1988). In terms of publications, Clive put his name to a wide array of articles in peer-reviewed journals. He was an assistant editor and member of the editorial committee for the *British Journal of Urology* from 1974 to 1990 and served on the editorial committee of the *British Journal of Surgery* from 1979 to 1986. He wrote *The urological system* (Harmondsworth, Penguins Education, 1973) and contributed to the *Textbook of genito-urinary surgery* (Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone, 1986), *Calculus disease* (Springer Dordrecht, 1988), *New trends in urinary tract infections: single-dose therapy* (Basel, New York, Karger, 1988) and the third edition of *Operative surgery and management* (Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1994). Furthermore, he authored an extensive critique of the life and surgical endeavours of Sir D’Arcy Power (1855 to 1941) in the *Journal of Medical Biography* in 1994, around the time of his retirement from full time surgical responsibilities (‘Sir D’Arcy Power: surgeon and historian’ *Journal of Medical Biography* 1994 2 137-145). Beyond the strict confines of medical practice, he became a yeoman of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in 1971 and was awarded freeman of the City of London in 1973. He was also a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1968, and a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England from 1963. He retired from active practice in 1994, having joined the Pensions Appeal Tribunal in 1993, on which he served until the turn of the century. And upon his retirement he undertook a further degree in local history at Bath Spa University, with a particular focus on how cholera affected the local population in the mid-17th century. Clive also loved his many (tiny) dogs, golf, theatre, live sport, biographies, medical history and Somerset country pubs. He died peacefully on 22 February 2025 at the age of 92 and was survived by Jennifer, along with his four children Simon, Clare, Jason and Harry. He is much missed.