George Clayfield Sawyer was born on 14 August 1909 in Portsmouth where his father was a sports journalist, later becoming Clerk to the local Medical Committee before the introduction of the NHS. He was educated at Portsmouth Grammar School and Guy's Hospital. Deciding on a career in surgery he held

James Dudfield Rose graduated MB BS from the medical school in Newcastle (then part of Durham University) in 1930 and went to Germany in 1936 to study gastroscopy, returning with a permanent impression of the rise of Nazism. Commissioned in the Royal Army Medical Corps, he was evacuated from Dunkirk

Eric John Smith was a consultant surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital, London. He was born on 31 March 1910 in Norwood, Surrey, the second son of Robert Percy and Edith Smith. His early life was overshadowed by the death from Hodgkin’s disease of his elder brother who had been a child prodigy, and Eri

Kenneth Gilchrist was Fiji's first surgeon specialist and principal of the Fiji School of Medicine from 1964 to 1970. He was born in London on 8 March 1910, the second son of James Gilchrist, a doctor and a graduate of Aberdeen University, and Constance Lilian Gilchrist née Osmond. He was educated a

William Robert Soutter Hutchinson, the son of a general practitioner, was born at Cannock in Staffordshire and educated at Sedbergh, where he developed his love of the country and the walking and fishing he enjoyed all his life. He then proceeded to Cambridge and completed his medical studies at St

After taking the Fellowship in 1935, Chatterjee returned to practise in India, where he died early in 1972.

Bob Wolfe was born in London on 10 October 1907. He came from Eastbourne College to St Thomas's where he qualified in 1932 and where, inspired by his teachers Cyril Nitch and Phillip Mitchiner, he decided on a career of surgery, rather against his father's hopes that they would join in general pract

S H Wass, the only child of Isaac Wass of Nottingham, was born on the 5 December 1907. He was educated at University College Nottingham, and came to Guy's Hospital as a preclinical student in 1928. He qualified in 1934, became FRCS in 1935 and MS of London University in 1936. Because of the second w

Professor Ibrahim Magdi was working at the As Salam Hospital in Giza, Egypt when he died on 3 March 1981.

Thomas Stewart Heslop was born in South Shields, the son of a schoolmaster, on 18 March 1907. He was educated at Blackburn Grammar School and Manchester University, where he graduated with first class honours in 1931, gaining the medal in medicine. After two years in the anatomy department under Pro

Desmond Kyran Mulvany was born in Portsmouth on 8 July 1907, the son of Dr John Mulvany, a general practitioner and an alderman of the City of Portsmouth, and his wife Eileen. His early education was at St John's College, Southsea, and St George's College, Weybridge, before entering King's College H

Iain Matheson was one of those unsung heroes who throughout the war and the worst of the bombing kept the civilian services going with very little assistance in the poorest parts of London. He was born on 18 November 1906 in Blackheath, South London, where his father John was a general practitioner,