Maurice Sydney Beare was born in Cork on 14 April, probably in 1920, since he started school in 1925. He was the second son of Isaac William Beare, a draper, and Rosa Leah Sless, daughter of a rabbi. Both his parents were of Lithuanian Jewish origin who had emigrated to Ireland. He was educated at the Presentation Brothers' College, Cork, from which he won first place in the Honan scholarship to the National University of Ireland, University College Cork. Qualifying in 1942, he did his house appointments at Manchester Royal Infirmary and the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital Stanmore. He was then a registrar in Oldham and at Liverpool Royal Infirmary (where he was registrar to Charles Wells). He was particularly influenced by John Jefferson. After the second world war he served in the RAMC and remained on in the Territorial Army as a Major. In 1959 he married Renate Barbara Sievers, the daughter of a dental surgeon, who had been his theatre sister. They had two daughters and a son. They went to Canada in 1966 and he took the Canadian boards in general surgery in 1969. To his great regret he had to give up surgery after undergoing coronary bypass surgery in 1970 and after that he took up civil aviation medicine. He was a keen cyclist and country walker. While still in England he and his wife had enjoyed cultivating cacti and succulents but they had to give it up when they emigrated and took up philately instead which, he remarked, he found a "poor substitute". He died on 15 December 1997.