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

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

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

Ingall received his medical education at the Westminster Hospital and qualified with the conjoint diploma in 1952. He gained the London MB BS in the following year. After holding house posts at the Westminster Hospital and surgical registrarships there and at the Royal Portsmouth Hospital, he moved

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

Born on 5 July 1905 in Gosforth, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, George Young Feggetter was the sixth son and the ninth child of William Feggetter, a shipbroker and coal exporter, and Amelia née Young, the daughter of a tobacconist. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and studied m

Huw Williams was born in Cardiff on 12 March 1946. He was educated at Dean Close School, Cheltenham, and at the Welsh National School of Medicine in Cardiff, where he qualified MB BCh in 1969. He trained in Cardiff where he became lecturer and was later Smith and Nephew research fellow in Newcastle

James Cosbie Ross was born in Liverpool on 17 May 1904. He was the son and grandson of doctors, his father being James Ross, a general practitioner in Walton, Liverpool. His mother was Delia Cosbie and James, as the eldest child, took the name of Cosbie. James used this name and linked Ross as 'Cobb

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

William Hamer, son of William, a chartered accountant, and his wife, Alice Marjorie, née Evans, was born in London on 22 July 1919. From Boston Grammar School and Oakham School, Rutland, he went to St Mary's Hospital, London. He held house appointments at the Postgraduate Medical School and was infl

Michael Du Preez (he did not use ‘Hercules’) was born in Cape Town on 19 November 1935, the son of Hercules James Du Preez, a company director, and his wife Josephine Florence née Koll. Educated at Rondebosch Boy’s School from 1944 to 1952, he proceeded to study medicine at the University of Cape To

Born 20 July 1876 at Gosberton, Lincs, the second son of Richard Jocelyn Swan (1849-1925), MRCS 1870 (see *Lancet*, 1925, 2, 1257), and his wife Ana Elizabeth, elder daughter of Robert Russell Harper, MRCS 1875, of Holbeach, Lincs. R J Swan was the second son of John W Swan, MRCS 1835, of Ballyragge