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

Arthur Messent obtained an open exhibition to Mill Hill School and proceeded to St Bartholomew's Hospital where he won the Brackenbury Prize in surgery and anatomy. He qualified in 1938 and after a short spell in general practice he joined the Royal Air Force and served in Coastal Command both in th