David Malcolm Joseph Burns was born on 2 November 1927 in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne. His father, David, was Professor of Physiology at Durham University and his mother, Clarice Margaret Dugdale, was a biochemist. He attended Newcastle Grammar School and studied medicine at Trinity College, Cambr

Gordon Clunie was a pre-eminent figure in the surgical life of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. Born in Fiji, he received his primary school education in Suva and secondary schooling at first in Hamilton New Zealand and later in Edinburgh. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, g

Sir John Chalstrey was a consultant surgeon and senior lecturer at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He specialised in oesophageal and gastric cancer surgery, was an early adopter of minimally invasive surgery when it was introduced in the 1980s, and a founder member of the Society of Minimally Invasive Ge

Lucian Gladwin Blaise Weliwita-Gunaratne was an accident and emergency surgeon in Kidderminster, and later returned to Sri Lanka, where he was a consultant surgeon at the Central Hospital (Nawinne). He was born on 3 February 1930 at Teldeniya, near Kandy, Ceylon. His parents, Don Zacharias Weliwita-

Alexander Cameron, known as ‘Alistair’, was a consultant surgeon at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He was born in Tranent, East Lothian, on 1 August 1933, the son of Alexander Cameron, a miner who became vice-president of the National Union of Mineworkers for the Scottish area, and Margaret née Hogg,

Gavin Smillie (formerly Smellie) was a consultant general and vascular surgeon and honorary clinical lecturer at the Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow. He was born in Glasgow in 1926, the son of William Smellie, a geologist, and Janet Smellie née Douglas, a school teacher. He spent his early years in Arge

Tom Wadsworth was one of the leading orthopaedic surgeons of his generation. He was born on 13 January 1930 in Liverpool, the son of Samuel Bertram Wadsworth and Elizabeth Brown. He was the youngest of four children and, being 14 years junior to the rest, had relatively old parents. His birth was di

Harold Vernon Ingram was born in Durham on 6 June 1902, the second child and elder son of William Jesse Ingram, a headmaster, university lecturer and bursar of Bede College, and of Eleanor Ingram (née Coates). From school he went to the College of Medicine of Durham University and qualified in 1924.

Michael Baddeley, universally known to a wide circle of friends as 'Mick', was a consultant surgeon to the United Birmingham Hospitals. He was born at Wolstanton in Staffordshire on 20 September 1932, the elder son of a mining engineer. He was educated at Chesterfield School, Derbyshire, and the Uni

Sir Peter Morris was the Nuffield professor of surgery, chairman of the department of surgery and director of the Oxford transplant centre at the University of Oxford and president of the Royal College of Surgeons of England from 2001 to 2004. He was born in Horsham in the state of Victoria, Austral

Andrew Talalla, a neurosurgeon, was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 29 November 1924. His father, Hewage Benjamin Talalla, was an industrialist who married Lily Olga Fernando. There were two older brothers, both of whom served in the RAF in the second world war, the elder being killed flying a Ty

Andrew Tallala, a neurosurgeon, was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 29 November 1924. His father, Hewage Benjamin Tallala, was an industrialist who married Lily Olga Fernando. There were two older brothers, both of whom served in the RAF in the second world war, the elder being killed flying a Ty