Hugh Brown was a consultant plastic surgeon at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, and a former president of the British Society for Surgery of the Hand. He was born on 25 February 1927 in Newcastle upon Tyne. His father, Charles Frank Brown, was a bank manager; his mother was Edith Temple Brow

“Kua hinga te totara i te wao nui a Tane – A mighty totara has fallen in the forest of Tane” aptly describes the sudden and unexpected death of JJ de Geus some months ago. John de Geus was a great teacher, colleague and friend to many. A well-loved surgeon, colleague, employer, friend and family man

Robert Acland was a pioneer of plastic and reconstructive microsurgery. He was born in Exeter on 20 June 1941, the younger son of Sir Richard Dyke Acland, 15th baronet of Colum John, a barrister and Labour politician, and Anne Stella Acland née Alford. Acland grew up in the dower house at Killerton,

David Francis Cort was born on 19 March 1935 in Hull, where his father was a bank manager. David was a bright student and gained a Staffordshire County scholarship which took him to Denstone College at Uttoxeter. From here he was awarded an open exhibition in natural sciences to Gonville and Caius C

Born on 17 September 1890, the son of a master at Manchester Grammar School, he was educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Blackburn, and at Manchester University, where he won the Dauntesey Scholarship and the Sidney Renshaw Exhibition and was later awarded medals in anatomy and physiology. He

James Emerson was born in Chesterfield in 1947, qualified at the Middlesex Hospital, where he did his house jobs, and, immediately he had registered, went to Colombia to work in an outlying district hospital. He always retained this interest in rural life in South America and a concern for the needs

Joseph Edwards studied medicine at King's College and King's College Hospital. After house appointments at King's he was a senior demonstrator in anatomy at the Middlesex Hospital before specialising in plastic surgery. He published extensively on the role of relaxin as an aetiological factor in dia

Oliver Mansfield was a consultant plastic surgeon to the West Midlands area. He was born in Sevenoaks, Kent, in 1912, the son of Percival Aubertine Mansfield, a general practitioner and Kathleen, a matron of a private nursing home. There was a strong medical tradition in the family - two of his cous

Ian McGregor was Director of the West of Scotland Plastic Surgery Unit at Cannisburn Hospital and a former President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. He was born on 6 June 1921 in Glasgow, the son of a monumental mason and a seamstress, and was educated at North Kelvinside

Flint received his medical education at University College Hospital and qualified MB BS in 1950. After house posts at University College Hospital and a lectureship in anatomy at University College he gained his Fellowship in 1957 and was surgical registrar at UCH and orthopaedic registrar at the Roy

John Watson was a consultant plastic surgeon at Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead. He was born in Blundellsands, Merseyside, on 10 September 1914. His father, John Watson, a lawyer, died when he was 18 months old. His mother, Annabel Windsor Watson née Thorp, the daughter of a Quaker physician

Thomas Laird Barclay was a consultant plastic surgeon at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield, St James Hospital, Leeds and St Luke's Hospital Bradford. Born in Huddersfield on 26 March 1925, the son of William and Mary Frances Barclay, he studied medicine at Edinburgh University. He qualified MB ChB in