Robert Wellesley-Cole was born in Kossoh, Freetown, Sierra Leone on 11 March 1907, the eldest son of Wilfred Sidney Ageh, a civil engineer and superintendent of Freetown waterworks, and Elizabeth, née Okafor-Smart, a West African of Krio race. His Nigerian great-grandfather had settled in Freetown t

Kenneth Rees-Thomas was the son of Arthur, an accountant in Roseneath, New Zealand, and his wife Edith Amy, née Heal. He was educated at Roseneath Primary School and then at Wellington College. On leaving school he trained and qualified as a pharmacist, but then on the advice of a family medical fri

Lawrence Sydney Arthur Boothroyd, known as 'Boots', was a consultant general surgeon and urologist at Lions Gate Hospital, North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was born in Harrogate, Yorkshire, on 12 September 1920, the son of Sydney Lionel Boothroyd, a master printer and lithographer and t

Barrington Sherwood Mather, known as 'Barrie', was a surgeon in Cairns and Melbourne, Australia. He was born in Birmingham on 15 February 1932, the eldest of three children of Cecil Aubrey Mather, a general practitioner, and Dorothy Collins Mather née Guest. His brother John also became a doctor and

Born on 1 November 1885, the son of T L Gauntlett of Putney, he was educated at King's College School, Wimbledon Common and entered King's College Hospital Medical School with the Warneford Scholarship in 1902. The hospital was then still in Portugal Street, just south of the Royal College of Surgeo

Thomas Candler, known to everyone as 'Tom', was a general practitioner and general surgeon in Bideford, Devon. He was born on 3 June 1920 in Exeter. His father, Arthur Lawrence Candler, was a surgeon who learned his craft in Mesopotamia in the First World War, and then became a consultant at the Roy

Reginald Keene was born in Islington, London, on 11 September 1897, the son of a chief administrative officer of the LCC Mental Hospitals' Department, and used to visit Oulton Broad on holiday as a child. A foundation scholar of Highgate Grammar School, he passed his first MB in 1915 but shortly aft

Eustace Victor Hope, the younger son and second of three children of Herbert Ashworth Hope, a barrister and company chairman, was born on 3 June 1914 at Church Stretton, Shropshire. He was educated at Stowe School and Trinity College, Cambridge, before entering St Thomas's Hospital Medical School an

John Hawkes Pendered was born on 7 September 1888 at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. He was educated at Wellingborough School and Caius College, Cambridge where he gained first class honours in the Natural Science Tripos in 1909. He then proceeded to the London Hospital where he did well in all hi

Charles Henry Greenwood was born in Leeds on 3 September 1875, the second son of Henry Greenwood, a director of the engineering firm of Greenwood and Batley, and his wife, Charlotte Elizabeth, née Wartzburg. He was educated at Sedbergh School, and entered Leeds University Medical School in 1894, qua

John Whittingdale, the son of Dr John Flasby Lawrance Whittingdale, MB Cambridge, MRCS, and of Marie Whittingdale (née Jennings), was born on 14 June 1894 in Sherborne, Dorset. He was to spend most of his long life in that place. After education at Sherborne Preparatory School and Sherborne School,

Francis Sandor was born in Budapest on 13 July 1905. His father, Ignac, was a businessman in Budapest and his mother, Jenni Cipszer, was a teacher. He left Hungary with the advent of Communism and went back to medical school in Edinburgh and re-qualified as LRFPS (Glasgow) in 1952. He originally tra