Lewis Thomas was a highly respected consultant general surgeon who worked in the Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport, from 1961 to 1986. Prior to this, he had been a senior lecturer in surgery at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary. He served the RCS, first as a surgical tutor under the Nuffield 'pilot scheme', a

Donald Patrick Robertson qualified MD from Manitoba University in 1938. He passed the FRCS in 1947. He was surgeon to the Public General Hospital and St Joseph's Hospital in Chatham, Ontario, before joining the surgical staff of the Huntsville District Memorial Hospital in Huntsville, Ontario. He

Jean Sandel was born towards the end of 1916, her parents' only child, in the small community of Taumarunui, twenty-five miles west of Lake Taupo in the centre of the North Island of New Zealand. She was educated at the Girls' High School, New Plymouth (on the coast, sixty miles west of her home), b

John Herdman was born on 15 December 1921. He studied medicine at Oxford, qualifying in 1945. He completed house jobs at the United Oxford Hospitals and at Ancoats, Manchester, from which he passed the FRCS. He then returned to the Nuffield Institute for Medical Research for two years, before underg

Gerald Nevill was a consultant surgeon in Kenya. He was born on 22 December 1915 in Nurney, County Carlow, Ireland, the son of Alexander Colles Nevill, Archdeacon of the Church of Ireland, and Rosettah Fitzgerald, a teacher of modern languages and one of the first women to graduate from the Universi

Austin Marsden was a consultant surgeon in Ormskirk and St Helens. He was born in St Helens, Lancashire, on Christmas Day 1919, the third son of George Marsden, a shoe merchant, and Agnes née Liptrot. He was educated at St Helens Catholic Grammar School, from which he went on to read medicine at Liv

William Garden Hendry was a consultant surgeon at Highlands General Hospital and Wood Green and Southgate Hospital, London. He was born in Aberdeen on 30 September 1914, the son of two schoolteachers, and was brought up in a strict Presbyterian household. He was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School a

Stanley Francis Reid, while a medical student at Melbourne, took a keen interest in flying and was one of a small band of students who joined the Citizen Air Force at Laverton, where he won his 'wings'. After qualifying MB BS Melbourne in 1936 he held posts as RMO in the Royal Melbourne Hospital, 19

Robert Ellis Gibbins was born in Birmingham on 29 July 1914, the son of David Gibbins, an engineer, and his wife Ethel Emilie, née Rohrbach. He was educated at a number of different schools and at Birmingham University Medical School, where he qualified MB ChB in 1938. After resident jobs at the Que

William Girdwood was born in Johannesburg on 25 May 1913, the son of William, a general practitioner and FRCS Edinburgh. Two uncles and his grandfather were all doctors, training in Edinburgh. After Grey High School, Port Elizabeth, William entered Witwatersrand University and won the South African

Henry Moore was born in Fiji in 1912, and graduated MB BS from Sydney in 1937. Following graduation he came to Britain with two research fellowships in 1938. He served in the RAMC throughout the war in the Middle East, Italy and Western Europe, and was awarded the MC in Belgium (for 'liberating a ca

Kenneth Richard Archer was born in Auckland, New Zealand, on 6 November 1915. His father, John Albert Archer, was in the New Zealand Public Works Department, and his mother, Elsie Mary, was a secretary and housewife. He was educated at Belmont Primary School in Auckland, and then Takapuna Grammar Sc