Janet Bottomley was born in London on 20 May 1915. Her father was (William) Cecil Bottomley, KCMG, CB, OBE, and was an assistant Under-Secretary of State at the Colonial Office and later Senior Crown Agent for the Colonies. Her mother, Alice Robinson, was the daughter of Sir Richard Robinson, Chairman of the London County Council. Her early education was at Putney High School and later at Wimbledon High School, where she won a senior trust scholarship. She went to medical school at the Royal Free Hospital, where she won many class prizes, including the Gant Medal for Clinical Surgery and the Helen Prideaux Postgraduate Studentship. Early hospital appointments after graduation were held at the Royal Free Hospital, Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital, the Chelsea Hospital for Women and the London Hospital, amongst others. During these early years she was influenced by the teaching of Victor Bonney and Sir Charles Read. After a spell in Germany as a Major in the RAMC, mostly at the 29th British General Hospital in Hanover, she was selected from fourteen candidates as honorary surgeon to the gynaecological and obstetrical department at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, in 1948, becoming the first female consultant on the staff at that hospital. As befitted the daughter of a distinguished civil servant, Janet Ritchie was well organised: her operating lists ran smoothly and never over time, and anaesthetists who might delay her by introducing innovative techniques were not tolerated. Medical audit would not have daunted her, as she kept a hand-written record of all patients admitted under her care. She served on the Council of the RCOG, examined for Cambridge University, the RCOG and the Central Midwives' Board, and was on the management committee of the Medical Insurance Agency. Her two principal interests outside her work were photography and travel. Many journeys were on pioneering package holidays, and she was one of the first after the war to visit the Great Wall of China and Antarctica. After retirement she did a locum in Borneo and then became medical officer to an archaeological dig, where she met Carson Ritchie, a senior lecturer in history at Thames Polytechnic, whom she married in 1979. He survived her, together with a step-son and step-daughter, when she died from cancer of the breast on 30 July 1995.