Born on 24 May 1914, Walter was the first son of William Theophilus Wiggins-Davies, a manufacturing stationer in Birmingham. He was educated at King Edward School in Birmingham and at Trinity College, Cambridge, before his clinical studies at St Thomas's Hospital. He became a senior surgical registr

William Houston was born in Newry, County Down, Eire, on 7 October 1916, the son of William Houston, a wholesale draper, and his wife Hilda, née Robinson, the daughter of a hotel proprietor. He was educated at St Andrew's College, Dublin, and later at Trinity College, to which he gained an entrance