Bernard Hand was born on 21 November 1919. His father, Ernest Francis Hand, was an architect and his mother, Mary, née Searle, was the daughter of an engineer. He was descended from Sir William Hillary, founder of the lifeboat service; as a consequence he gave constant support to the RNLI throughout

Frederick Samuel Gorrill was born on 30 July 1913 at Okehampton, Devon, the son of a village constable. He was educated at Torquay Grammar School and King's College, London, where he obtained an honours BSc in chemistry in 1934. He became involved in research in biochemistry, and was later appointed

Anthony (Tony) Dingley was born on 22 March 1922 at Leamington Spa in Warwickshire, the son of Eric Gordon Dingley, FRCS Edinburgh, senior surgeon at Warneford Hospital, Leamington Spa, and Marion (Moll) Bradshaw, a nursing sister in QARANC, who served in Iraq. His uncle, Allen Roy Dingley, was a co

Raymond Ramsay was born on 19 August 1916 at Peddie, South Africa. He was the youngest child and second son of Alexander Orlando Ramsay, the owner of a trading post, and of his wife Florence, née Tanner. Both parents were born in England; his father (the twelfth child of a preparatory school headmas

Joseph Peacock was born in Brentford, London, on 22 October 1918, the only child (two sisters having died) of Henry James Peacock, general manager of the Great Western Railway, and of Florence Peacock, née Milton. After education at Reading School and Bristol Grammar School he entered Birmingham Uni

John Howard Lees Ferguson was the third generation of a medical family. He was educated at Shrewsbury School where he was a classical scholar. Although pressed to continue in this field, he was determined to study medicine and entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, before moving to the Middl

Irvine Smith was a consultant surgeon to Burton-on-Trent General Hospital. He was born in Ilkley on 5 December 1919. His father, Fredric Battinson Smith, was a forensic pathologist who had won the Military Cross in the first world war and later advised the Ministry of Health on setting up a national

Peter Boreham was a much-loved and highly respected general surgeon in Cheltenham with a major urological interest. He was born on 26 May 1922 in Szechuan, China, into a missionary family. He was the second son of the Reverend Frederick Boreham and his wife Mildred née Slater: an older brother, Doug

Hughlings Jackson, a distant cousin of the great neurologist, was born on 3 October 1912, the youngest of the five children of William Herbert Jackson, a former master mariner who owned a stevedoring business in London and later worked for the Mission to Seamen. His mother was Beatrice née Walker. F

Michael Roger Williams was born in London on 30 March 1921. He was the eldest son of Muriel, née Buckley, the daughter of Lord Wrenbury, Justice of Appeal, and Bernard Williams, consultant surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital. He attended Rose Hill Preparatory School in Banstead, followed by Oundle Schoo

The following obituary was published in printed volume 8 of Plarr's Lives of the Fellows: Brian Flannery was perceived by his colleagues as the archetypal Aussie, a big man in every way, big-hearted and with a big capacity for hard work. He was born on 5 May 1919 in Sydney, New South Wales, and

Caleb Tucker was born in Ashburton, the second of four children, of Edward, a timber and joinery business owner, and Elizabeth Tucker. Both parents were keen musicians, his mother a pianist and his father playing the cornet, and Caleb was encouraged to learn the piano. He was educated at Ashburton H