Geoffrey Ingram was a consultant surgeon at Hope Hospital, Salford (later Salford Royal Hospitals). He was born in Chadderton near Oldham on 19 March 1936, to George Ingram and Elsie Ingram née Oakes. He went to school at Oldham Hulme Grammar School, subsequently gaining entry to Manchester University to read medicine. He qualified in 1960 and did his house officer appointments at Manchester Royal Infirmary and its associated hospitals. These were followed by a senior house officer rotation, which included thoracic surgery, at Baguley Hospital. He returned to Manchester Royal Infirmary for registrar training, gaining his FRCS in 1966. This was followed by a period of surgical research in the Manchester medical school department of surgery, where he investigated splanchnic blood flow and the influence of histamine and temperature changes on secretory responses. The results were published in the *British Journal of Surgery* (‘The effects of the ingestion of hot and cold fluids on splanchnic blood-flow before and after gastric operations.’ *Br J Surg*. 1966 Sep;53[9]:759-60). For his higher training at senior registrar level he moved to Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary in 1967, where he gained specialised experience in hepatobiliary surgery, an interest he maintained in the years to come. He was appointed as a consultant general surgeon at Hope Hospital, Salford in 1971. There he took a particular interest in portal hypertension and its surgical management and gradually established this specialty in Salford, a move that was fortuitous in the light of subsequent developments. To his delight, Hope Hospital was chosen as the third major teaching hospital of the rapidly expanding Manchester medical school. He enthusiastically supported the major changes that were required to accomplish this transition, particularly because the first professorial chair to be established, the professor of medicine, was held by Leslie Turnberg, a gastroenterologist. Some 12 months later, the university appointed a surgeon with an interest in gastroenterology to the chair in surgery. The two professors, with a shared interest in gastroenterology, decided to form a joint department of academic gastroenterology enabling Geoff, with his interest in hepatobiliary surgery, to link with Michael Marsh, a senior lecturer in gastroenterology with a clinical interest in hepatology, thereby completing a gastroenterological portfolio which subsequently went from strength to strength to achieve a national reputation. Geoff embraced the academic approach to his specialty and was himself a pioneer in using minimal access techniques. He and his surgical colleagues, John Bancewicz and Errol Gross, explored the role of peritoneoscopy in the preoperative assessment of patients scheduled for radical surgical resection of gastric and oesophageal cancers. By demonstrating that many of these patients already had metastatic spread, and were therefore incurable, they prevented unnecessary diagnostic laparotomy. Their findings, published in the *British Medical Journal* in 1984, evoked wide interest (‘Assessment of gastric cancer by laparoscopy.’ *Br Med J (Clin Res Ed)*. 1984 May 26;288[6430]:1577). Geoffrey Ingram was an able teacher and manager and played a key role in establishing the new teaching hospital. He was also a disciplinarian who expected the highest standards from his trainees and students, especially, in the case of the latter, their dress! He was a fellow of the Association of Surgeons and a lecturer in surgery at Manchester University. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the College’s overseas visits. He played an important part in restoring surgical services in Romania following the fall of Ceaușescu and joined the surgical team from Salford in visiting the city of Iași and bringing their surgical trainees to Manchester for basic and higher training. In his training days, he met and married Ishbel Taylor, a nurse who achieved national recognition in the central sterile supply department world. They had a happy marriage with three children, two of whom are also medically qualified, and a daughter who is finance director of the North West Ambulance Service. Geoff loved gardening and every year produced a spectacular display of fuchsias. He was also an enthusiastic painter and was proud to have his works, on one occasion, exhibited at the Royal College of Surgeons. Geoff died on 3 February 2019. He was 82.