Francis Gordon Bell was born at Marlborough, New Zealand, in 1887, and was educated at Marlborough High School, where he became captain of rugby and vice-captain of the cricket team. He came to Britain in 1905 and entered Edinburgh University, where he was awarded the Vans Dunlop Scholarship in anatomy in 1908, and graduated MB, ChB with first-class honours in 1910. He was demonstrator of anatomy at the Medical School from 1910 to 1914, combining this with clinical work at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and in Liverpool and Manchester. In 1913 he took the Conjoint Diploma and the FRCS; he proceeded MD with commendation and was awarded the Goodsir Memorial Fellowship. After postgraduate study in Berlin and at the Mayo Clinic he returned to Britain in 1915. During the first world war he joined the RAMC and was sent to France on active service. In 1916 he was attached to an advanced casualty clearing station, where he did outstanding work and was awarded the MC; he was mentioned later in dispatches. After demobilization with the rank of Major he thought of settling in London, but went back to Edinburgh as clinical tutor under his old chief Alexis Thomson, and later became surgical tutor from 1920 to 1923. He was elected to the staff of Edinburgh Royal Infirmary as assistant surgeon in 1924, obtaining the FRCS Ed in the same year. In 1925 he accepted the post of Professor of Surgery in the University of Otago and held this post until his retirement in 1952, when he was honoured as Emeritus. Gordon Bell was a foundation Fellow in 1927 of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, and played an active part in establishing the new College in New Zealand and in Australia. He served on its Council from 1939 to 1949, and was Vice-President 1943 to 1947 and President 1947 to 1949. In 1952 the Royal Society of Medicine elected him an Honorary Fellow, and in 1953 he was created KBE. He was Chairman of the Otago Division of the British Medical Association in 1929-30. In 1916 he married Marion Welsh Berry Austin who died in 1968. Sir Gordon Bell contributed to the medical journals and published his autobiography *A Surgeon's Saga* in 1968. He died at Dunedin on 28 February 1970, aged 82, survived by his son and three daughters.