Dennis Owen Clark was born at Kawimbe, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), on 18 August, 1907. His father was a missionary. He was educated at Eltham College, where he obtained exemption from the first MB and an entrance scholarship to St Thomas's Hospital when he won the Hadden Toller Prize. He graduated i

Ascroft was born on 4 September 1906, the only son of James Arthur Ascroft of Bootle, Lancashire and Hannah Byers of Culton, Cumberland. He was educated at Worksop, the Middlesex Hospital, and the University of Strasbourg, qualifying in 1930; the next year he gained the gold medal at his Master of S