Stanley Arthur Russell (‘Stan’) Cooke was a consultant general surgeon in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was born on 18 March 1932, the son of Richard Stanley Cooke and Isobel Faulds Cooke née Russell. He was educated at St John’s College, Johannesburg, and then went to the UK to attend medical scho

Arthur Dixon was born in Melbourne on 14 April 1922; the eldest son of R H E Dixon, and was educated at Wesley College, Melbourne. He entered the State Savings Bank as a clerk at the Croydon branch in 1939, living with his family at Lillydale. In 1941 he was conscripted to the Commonwealth Milita

Gavin Smillie (formerly Smellie) was a consultant general and vascular surgeon and honorary clinical lecturer at the Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow. He was born in Glasgow in 1926, the son of William Smellie, a geologist, and Janet Smellie née Douglas, a school teacher. He spent his early years in Arge

Tom Wadsworth was one of the leading orthopaedic surgeons of his generation. He was born on 13 January 1930 in Liverpool, the son of Samuel Bertram Wadsworth and Elizabeth Brown. He was the youngest of four children and, being 14 years junior to the rest, had relatively old parents. His birth was di

Madhukar Kulkarni was a consultant surgeon in Malaysia. He was born on 4 July 1931 in Nagpur, Maharastra, central India, the son of a general practitioner and the eldest of six children. His third sister also became a surgeon. He studied medicine at the University of Nagpur, where he qualified in 19

Peter Wilson was a meticulous neurosurgeon at Swansea who was committed to the highest standards of clinical care and fostered the same work ethic in his colleagues. He was born in Portsmouth on 8 April in 1933, the elder son of Herbert Wilson and Kathleen Wilson née Humphries. His father was an