Michael Arthur Pugh was a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at University College Hospital, London and the Whittington Hospital. He was born in Manchester on 6 October 1929, the son of Robert Arthur Pugh, a journalist, and Norah Margaret Pugh née Rees, a market research executive. The family moved to London in 1936. During the Second World War Michael was evacuated to Torquay, where he attended St Olave’s Grammar School, a London school which had relocated during the hostilities. After the war, he returned to London and continued to attend the school, eventually becoming school captain. From there he went to St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College. Throughout his life, he maintained close links with both his school and medical college. He qualified in 1953 and was a pre-registration house physician and house surgeon at Barts. He had always wanted to be an obstetrician/gynaecologist, but before progressing any further with his medical career he first had to do his National Service, which he did between 1954 and 1956, in the Royal Air Force as a flight lieutenant medical officer in the Far East, being stationed in Malaya, Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong. He received the Air Efficiency Award and Bar. On his return to London, he continued with his junior appointments, being a resident medical officer at the City of London Maternity Hospital for six months, followed by six months at Queen Charlotte’s Maternity Hospital. He was then appointed as a resident medical officer to the Hospital for Women, Soho Square in June 1957, serving 12 months in that post. From there he returned to Barts as a junior surgical registrar for a year, during which time he was granted a clinical assistantship at St Mark’s Hospital for Diseases of the Rectum and Colon. In 1962 and 1963 he was a registrar at the Middlesex Hospital, which included the Soho, and it was at the Middlesex he met Jennifer, a fellow registrar (in anaesthetics), who was be his wife for nearly 50 years, and to whom he was deeply devoted. They had two children, Emma and Guy. He moved on, in 1964, to be a senior registrar to Sir John Stallworthy at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. Academically he gained his membership of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1959 and his fellowship of the Royal College Surgeons in 1962. He was appointed as a fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1971. In 1967 he was appointed as a consultant to the Royal Northern Hospital at Archway and to the City of London Maternity Hospital in Hornsey. He loved his work and took a particular interest in the menopause, setting up a clinic specifically for managing the problems associated with it. He was especially proud that two of his senior house officers at the City of London Maternity Hospital went on to gain gold medals in the membership examinations for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He was appointed as a consultant obstetrician/gynaecologist to the Middlesex and Soho hospitals in 1974. The Hospital for Women in Soho Square was closed in 1987 and the beds were relocated in the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital, which was renamed the United Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital and the Hospital for Women. Then, later, when the University College Hospital and the Middlesex Hospital departments of obstetrics and gynaecology merged he, with his colleagues, became consultants at University College Hospital, London. At the UCH he continued his special interest in the menopause and in particular in hormone replacement therapy. He was always a keen and didactic teacher (one never slept in any of his tutorials!) and a popular one. He particularly liked taking groups of students for tutorials in the museum at Soho. After the closure of Soho, he used his influence to preserve the museum, which contained an important collection of specimens. He retired in 1994 at the age of 65 and was granted the status of emeritus consultant at University College Hospital and also at the Whittington Hospital, which had absorbed the Royal Northern and the City of London Maternity hospitals. He continued teaching pathology to medical students at UCH until a few months before he died. He always stressed that he was a clinician and not a pathologist. His aim was to get the students to understand the disease process and to picture in their minds the changes that occur in their patients resulting in the symptoms and signs that are revealed by a careful history and examination that lead to the correct diagnosis and subsequent management. He was an examiner for the Conjoint Board, the University of London, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and the Society of Apothecaries. He was on the staff of St Luke’s Hospital for the Clergy and worked there until it closed, by which time he was 80 years old. He was a member for several years of the cases committee of the Medical Protection Society, a sub-committee of the council, where cases and claims brought against members were reviewed. Both he and Jennifer were members of a number of medical societies, which they both regularly attended. These were the Royal Society of Medicine, the Harveian, the Hunterian, the Medical Society of London and the Hampstead Medical Society. Like many of his colleagues, he had a very successful private practice in Harley Street and was particularly busy with obstetric patients. He had a wall in his consulting room filled with photographs of the very many babies he had delivered. He and Jennifer were both liverymen of the Society of Apothecaries. He was one of the examiners for the licentiate in medicine and surgery of the Society of Apothecaries (LMSSA) until it ceased. He was master apothecary in 1997. In December 2017 at the 400th anniversary dinner of the Society of Apothecaries in Guildhall he presented a silver loving cup, which was designed to include two rhinoceros, the emblem of the Society. He was also an active freemason, being a member of the Rahere Lodge of St Bartholomew’s Hospital and took his turn as worshipful master on two occasions. He acted as mentor and guide to the younger, newer masons and was always an unstinting donor to the charitable causes the Craft supported. Having served in the RAF, it was natural for him to join the RAF Club in Piccadilly, where generously he loved to entertain his friends. His other club was the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club), where he was able to indulge himself in a sport that gave him much pleasure. Being a regular churchgoer, he was warden at St Mark’s, Regents Park for more than ten years and also was a guide at Westminster Abbey, where he ‘had his own chapel’. Above all of these, he was a family man. He and Jennifer were always very close and when she predeceased him by some two years he was naturally devastated. He loved his children, of whom he was very proud. Emma became a GP and Guy a documentary producer with a special interest in Russia. Mike thoroughly enjoyed having his grandchildren around. Of Mike it has been said by many that he was one of the kindest people one ever met and was never heard to say a bad word about anyone. He was a beacon of all that is good in our profession.