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,

Kenneth Gerald Rotter was born in Bexley, Kent, on 8 April 1912, the son of Dr Godfrey Rotter CB, CBE, GM, a research chemist and the Head of Woolwich Arsenal, and Gertrude, née Plank. He was educated at the City of London School and St Bartholomew's Hospital where he qualified MRCS LRCP in 1936 and