John Howard Lees Ferguson was the third generation of a medical family. He was educated at Shrewsbury School where he was a classical scholar. Although pressed to continue in this field, he was determined to study medicine and entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, before moving to the Middl

David Stirk was a consultant general surgeon in Barnstaple and an authority on golf. He was born in Exeter on 1 March 1916, the son of a doctor. He was educated at Blundell’s and studied medicine at St Mary’s Hospital. After five years in the RAMC, three of which were spent in India, he returned t

Douglas Robertson was a consultant general surgeon at the Royal Hospital, Sheffield. He was born in London in 1919 of Scottish parents. His father, Falconer Robertson, was a banker, and his mother, Jane Mary Duff, was a teacher. Douglas was educated at the Stationers’ Company School. He entered St B

John Stephens was a general surgeon at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He was born on 29 March 1919 in Northamptonshire, where his father was an engineer with farming interests. Educated at Stowe School, his scholastic achievements were complimented by a flair for sport, particularly rugby. At Gonvill

Horatio Orishejolomi Thomas was a distinguished alumnus of Birmingham University Medical School. He was the first Nigerian surgeon to become FRCS and in April 1962 he was invited by the Federal government of Nigeria to establish a medical school and teaching hospital at Lagos. Later in that year (Se

Paul Brian Counsell moved to Bermuda as a consultant surgeon in 1958 and for several years was the only general surgeon there. Isolated in Bermuda, he carried out general surgery in the widest sense, performing abdominal surgery, orthopaedics, genito-urinary surgery, and an occasional Caesarean sect

Malcolm May was born in Gravesend, Kent, on 16 October 1919, the son of John George May, a Trinity House pilot, and Aileen (née Reynolds). He was educated at Gravesend Grammar School and Guy's Hospital, qualifying by the Conjoint examination in 1942. He joined the Royal Navy as Surgeon-Lieutenant, s

Albert Tompkin was born on 14 March 1921 in Nottingham, the son of Albert, an analytical chemist and his wife, Lucy, née Wilson, who was a teacher. He went to Nottingham High School and long before he left he had made up his mind to be a surgeon. In 1937 while still only sixteen years of age he was

Born on 2 December 1919 at Rhos, a village near Wrexham, North Wales, John Lloyd Davies was the son of a general practitioner surgeon at Wrexham Hospital, and grandson of a general practitioner. Educated at Epsom College, he obtained a scholarship to St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1937, where he quali

Ronald McGrigor was born in London on 1 January 1920, the son of Dalziel McGrigor and Dorothy Macgregor Drysdale. His father was a radiologist in the RAMC. He was educated at Stowe School and Trinity College Cambridge, where he passed the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1940 and then went to St Bartholom

Terence Kennedy was born in Plymouth on 12 December 1919 to Charles Matheson Kennedy, MBE FRCS, former surgical first assistant at the London Hospital and consultant surgeon at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Plymouth, and Mabel Maud, née Hore, a nurse. His grandfather had qualified at Trinity, Dublin

John Reginald Thompson was born on 13 March 1917 in Paignton, Devon, the son of John Thompson FRCS, GP surgeon of Torquay and Paignton and Elsie, née Royle. His mother was one of the first women to qualify as a doctor when she passed the MD in Manchester in 1909. He was educated at Sherborne School