Born on 21 June 1888 the son of John Lionel Stretton MRCS 1881, surgeon to the Kidderminster Infirmary, and his wife Lucy Houghton; his grandfather Samuel Stretton MRCS 1854 was appointed surgeon to the Infirmary in 1856, and the three generations thus served for ninety-six years, he was educated at Malvern College, and Caius College, Cam-bridge. At St Bartholomew's Hospital he was serving as house surgeon when war began in 1914. He joined the RAMC and served throughout the war. Returning to Kidderminster in 1919 he practised at 50 Bewdley Road, and was appointed in 1921 surgeon to the Infirmary, now the Kidderminster and District General Hospital, and also to the Guest Hospital, Dudley. He was particularly interested in traumatic surgery, and did original work in his treatment of inguinal and femoral hernia; for the former he modified Bassini's method, making use of silk nets specially woven by his wife, and for the latter he devised a special needle. "Mr John", as he was always called, naturally took his place in the public life of Kidderminster; he served as District Commissioner of Boy Scouts, and was keenly interested in the welfare of all connected with the Hospital. He married on 25 April 1923 Mary, sister of Professor J M Smellie FRCP, who survived him with three grown-up sons. He died suddenly at the end of the nurses' prize-giving at the Hospital on 27 September 1952 aged 64. The funeral was at St John's Church, Kidderminster. He had lived latterly at Lea Grange.