Thomas Cecil Gray was the first professor of anaesthesia at Liverpool University and undoubtedly one of the great British pioneers of modern anaesthesia. He was born in Liverpool on 11 March 1913, the son of Thomas Gray, a local publican, and Ethelreda Unwin. A devout Roman Catholic, Cecil was educa

Sir Donald Campbell was a former professor of anaesthesia at the University of Glasgow and President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow from 1992 to 1994. He was born on 8 March 1930 at Rutherglen, near Glasgow, the son of Archibald Peter and Mary Campbell. He attended Hutche

Anaesthesia was introduced into surgery in 1846 and for the first 100 years little progress was made. It remained essentially a craft learned by experience rather than a science. Full-time anaesthetists were rare, anaesthetics being administered by general practitioners or any hospital doctors. The

Gordon Robson was a former director and professor of anaesthetics at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School and Hammersmith Hospital, and the first anaesthetist to be elected vice-president of the college. He was born in Stirling on 18 March 1921, the son of James Cyril Robson and Freda Elizabeth How

Robert Reynolds Macintosh was born in Timaru, New Zealand, on 17 October 1897 the son of Charles N Macintosh, a surveyor who had been a member of the first rugby football team representing New Zealand abroad in 1893, and his wife Beatrice, née Thompson. He was educated at Waitaki Boys' High School a

Jean-Pierre van Besouw, known to most simply as 'J-P', was a consultant anaesthetist and honorary senior lecturer at St George's Hospital, London and president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists from 2012 to 2015. He was born on 20 April 1957 in Dublin, Ireland, the son of Jos and Anne van Besouw

William Derek Wylie was one of the leading anaesthetists of his generation. Born in Huddersfield in 1918, he was educated at Uppingham, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and St Thomas's Hospital, where he qualified in 1943. Initially he intended to become a physician and held junior appointment

Douglas Donald Currie Howat was a consultant anaesthetist at St George’s Hospital, London. He was born on 10 January 1920, in Denholm in Roxburghshire on the Scottish borders. His grandfather ran a muslin factory in Glasgow, but his father, Reginald Douglas Howat, preferred the life of a country gen

Ivan Magill was born at Larne, Northern Ireland on 23 July 1888 the son of Samuel, a draper and Sara (née Whiteside). He was educated at Larne Grammar School and Queen's University, Belfast, a strong young man of "enviable physique" being a rugby forward and a heavy-weight boxer for the university.

Born in 1856 the son of Captain Charles Edward Mortimer, 4th Middlesex Militia, and his wife Mary Jane Fanstone. He was educated at Bristol and at the Westminster Hospital and St Bartholomew's. He served for a period as prosector at the Royal College of Surgeons. He first intended to practise as an

Born on 25 April 1905 he was educated at Brighton College and the Middlesex Hospital, qualifying with the Conjoint diploma in 1927. He was appointed anaesthetist at the Middlesex Hospital, and in 1938 took the diploma in anaesthetics. In the second world war he served in the RAMC in the Central M

Born about 1873 he was educated at Bristol medical school, held house appointments at the General Hospital and the Royal Infirmary, Bristol and at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, and was for a time demonstrator of anatomy in the Bristol medical school. During the war of 1914-18 he served in the RAMC