James Oldfield was born in Sunderland on 10 July 1923. His father was Thomas Oldfield, a shipwright, and his mother was Annie, née Cockerill-Lawrence. He attended Bede Collegiate School, Sunderland, and then went to Durham University to study medicine on a Miners' Association Scholarship. He attende

Born on 2 September 1874, the second child of Joseph Addison and Marianne Brown his wife. He was educated at Marlborough College and at University College, London. After serving as house surgeon to (Sir) Victor Horsley at University College Hospital, where he formed a friendship with George Waugh, q

Bernard Sanger was at school in Hastings and received his medical training at the London Hospital where he qualified in 1934. He pursued his surgical career at the London Hospital before his appointment to Southend Municipal Hospital in 1938. Rodney Maingot was a visiting surgeon at that hospital

Leslie Norman Pyragh was born at Farnley, near Leeds, on 11 April 1899, the son of a headmistress. Unfortunately no further details of his forbears are available. He was educated at Leeds Central High School and served in the army during the final stages of the first world war. He then read medicine

Kennedy Burnside was born in Melbourne on 9 December 1913. He was educated at Melbourne Church of England Grammar School before going to the University of Melbourne to read medicine. He graduated in 1937 and was successively resident and registrar at the Alfred Hospital in 1938 and 1939. During t

David Ronald Davies, always 'DR' to his friends, was born on 11 May 1910 in Clydach, Swansea, and remained readily identifiable as a Welshman throughout a long surgical career in London, followed by retirement to Exmoor. After schooling at the Ystalyfera County School, which inevitably gave him an e

Andrew Higgins was born in Middlesex in 1943 and qualified from the Royal Free Hospital, London, in 1968. He studied surgery at Chase Farm Hospital, the Royal Northern Hospital and at the Royal Free Hospital. He married a fellow student, Jane, and they had one son and three daughters - one of whom i

Alexander McCalister (known as 'Alex') was a consultant general surgeon at the Ulster Hospital. He was born in Belfast on 6 June 1925 and grew up in rural Northern Ireland in relatively poor circumstances: his mother cooked on an open peat fire and they had no piped water in the home. His family sug

John Patrick Acton Weaver was a consultant urological surgeon at Dundee Royal Infirmary and a senior lecturer in surgery at the Universities of St Andrews and Dundee. He was born in Oxford, the son of John Reginald Homer Weaver, professor of history and president of Trinity College, and Stella Mary

Born at Stretford, near Manchester, on 2 February 1874, the second child and eldest son of John Henry Burgess, a merchant, and his wife, nee Sharrocks. He was educated at Rose Hill School, Bowden, Cheshire and, after a year in a shipping office, at Owens College, Manchester, where he won the Dalton

Pradip Basu was a urological and general surgeon in Lincoln. He was born on 4 January 1942 into a medical family in Calcutta, India, the sixth child of Bibhuti Bhusan and Durga Rani Basu née Sinha. His grandfather and father qualified in Calcutta; his father became chief medical officer to the east

Patrick Desmond O'Donoghue was a surgeon in Kenya. He was born in Kaiapoi, New Zealand, on 12 May 1922, the second son of Michael and Eva O'Donoghue. His father was a teacher and later schools inspector. Pat attended Christchurch Boys' High School, where he excelled in classics, sciences, literature