David Cropley was born in Sydney on 15 June 1926. His father, Oswald Albert Cropley, was a shoemaker. His mother was Hester Sarah Cropley. From the Sydney Church of England Grammar School he went to study medicine at Sydney University, and was for a time anatomical prosector. After qualification, he

Leslie Simon served in the RAMC and qualified MB, ChB in Edinburgh in 1947. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1952 and a Fellow of the College in 1955. He held posts at the Northern Regional Surgery Centre at Shotley Bridge and at the St Mary Abbots Hospital in Lond

Keith Paterson Abel, son of the distinguished surgeon Lawrence Abel FRCS and Margaret Russell Paterson MD MRCP was born on 31 July 1926. He was educated at Rugby and Upper Canada College, Toronto, and then at Trinity College, Cambridge. After the Natural Science Tripos he went to St Mary's Hospital

John Cornelius Blair Serjeant was a consultant general surgeon and urologist at Shotley Bridge General Hospital, County Durham. He was born at Masham, Yorkshire, on 17 January 1917, the son of Robert Serjeant, a surveyor of HM Customs and Excise, and Agnes, his wife, formerly Blair, who was a teache

Athol James Duke was born in Dunedin in 1928 and his early education was at McGlashen College and at the Otago Boys' High School where he was head prefect and played for the school first XV at rugby. He entered Otago Medical School in 1947, qualifying in 1951, and after completing officer appointmen

'Sam' Mitchell was a consultant general surgeon in Swansea. He was born in Aberystwyth on 30 May 1926, where his father, Samuel, and mother, Doris née Finlay, were school teachers. He was educated at the County School in Aberystwyth and Cardiff University. His junior posts were on the professorial u

Frank Bishop studied medicine in Melbourne and, after junior posts at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, came to England to specialise in surgery. He worked as a senior house officer at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Kent, and, after passing the final FRCS in 1955, returned to Melbourne as a registrar at t

Leslie Linder was born in London on 29 October 1923 to Hyman Linder, a merchant and his wife, Anna, née Karsberg. He was educated at Westminster School and Cambridge University. In 1962 he became lecturer in anatomy in the University of Natal for two years, and then was casualty surgeon in King E