Raymond Purvis was born in Southampton on 30 December 1904, the second child and younger son of a consultant surgeon, William Prior Purvis, MD, MS, FRCS, and of Dora Raymond, daughter of Walter Raymond, a Somerset author. His paternal grandfather and great grandfather were also medically qualified.

David Clowes Williams was born in Tarbach, Port Talbot, the son of John Ffoulkes Williams and his wife Elizabeth, née Thomas. He attended the University of Wales in Cardiff and the Welsh National School of Medicine, where he was influenced by the teaching of Professor Grey Turner. He qualified MB BC

William John Ferguson spent his boyhood in Cumbria and from there went to London to study medicine at Guy's Hospital, qualifying MRCS, LRCP in 1929 and MB BS in London in 1931. He embarked on a surgical career at once, passing his Fellowship in 1932 and his London MS in 1933, for which he was awarde

Andrew Roy Banham was the only son of Sydney Marshall Banham, a general practitioner, and of Sophie Grace Banham (née Hacking) herself a medical practitioner who practised ophthalmology. He was born in Ealing on 15 October 1904. After early education at Yardley Court, Tonbridge, he secured an open s

Born on Christmas Day 1902, the son of Henry Thomas Blake and Maud MacIntyre, Henry Elliot Blake was educated at Dean Close, Cheltenham, Queen's College, Cambridge, and St Thomas's Hospital, London. His father was a member of the Institute of Water Engineers and a County Councillor and Justice of th

Oswald Vaughan Lloyd-Davies was born at Chariton, Kent on 13 January 1905, the son of Rev Samuel Lloyd-Davies BA, a congregational minister, and Anna Marguerita, née Evans. He was educated at Caterham School where he secured the Honoratus Prize before entering the Middlesex Hospital Medical School f

Kenneth Leslie James was born on 15 July 1906 in Burton-on-Trent, the son of Joseph Henry James, MA, LIB, BD, who had given up the law to become a Methodist Minister, and his wife Minnie, née Longley. His early education was at the Burnley Grammar School but due to the peripatetic nature of his f

Arthur Williams was born on 31 December 1905 in Swansea, the son of David Edward Williams, a schoolmaster, and Katherine Hannah, née Humphries. He attended Swansea Grammar School and Swansea University College as a scholar, before going on to the Welsh National School of Medicine in Cardiff. He chos

Tom Wilson was consultant surgeon to the Eastbourne group of hospitals. He was born on 28 November 1904 at Antony in Cornwall, the son of Thomas Wilson, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland who had served as an Army surgeon during the Boer war, and Edith Mary Crichton (née Boxer), th

Hermon Taylor was born in Workington on the Cumbrian coast on 11 May 1905. His father, Enoch Oliver Taylor, was a schoolmaster and his mother, Louise née Harrison, a schoolmistress. His father came to London to become Director of Education for Edmonton and Hermon was educated at Latymer School, from

Arthur Latchmore qualified in 1929 and after junior posts in Leeds specialised in surgery. He was resident surgical officer at the General Infirmary Leeds, and surgical tutor in the University of Leeds. During the war he served in the RAMC as Lieutenant-Colonel. He returned to Leeds as consultant su

Born on 25 June 1902, son of John Forrester Wood FRCS of Southport, he wished to make the army his career but the loss of sight in one eye at the age of 12 prevented this. Educated at Cheltenham College he was apprenticed at 16 to a firm of engineers, but owing to the world depression his father adv