Winifred Joan Wadge was a consultant ENT surgeon at the Royal Ear Hospital (University College Hospital) and the Nelson Hospital, Wimbledon. She was born on 22 May 1904 in Ilford, Essex, the second of three children to Frederick Collett Wadge, a solicitor, and Winifred Hardwick Wadge née Shacklock,

Henry Sutcliffe Sharp was born in Leeds in 1910 into a distinguished medical family. He was educated at Haileybury and Caius College, Cambridge, whence he graduated MB, BCh in 1936 having obtained the Conjoint Diploma in the previous year. After holding junior appointments at St Thomas's Hospital, L