‘Bill’ Richardson, who ultimately became one of only two consultant general surgeons at Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield, had an interesting and varied career before studying medicine. Although he was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1915, his early childhood was spent in Fiji, where his father, Pud, grew bananas for export, and his mother, Margaret, was a schoolteacher and governess. At the age of nine, Bill was sent to board at Barker College in Hornsby, then to Suva Grammar School in Fiji, and finally at Knox Grammar School at Wahroonga, New South Wales. Whilst boarding at Knox, his father moved to Innisfail, North Queensland, to the South Johnston Sugar Mill. Bill left school at 16 to work in the laboratory of the Colonial Sugar Refinery. During the Depression years he lived in a boarding house, but later rented a flat in Kirribilli, with views over Sydney harbour and the new bridge. He lived a ‘bohemian’ life, mixing with a group of young people, including his future wife, Margaret. He then moved to Auckland, to work in a New Zealand sugar refinery. He and Margaret married in 1936, although it was unheard of for an employee to marry so young. A son, Marcus Worsley, was born in 1940, and the following year Bill joined the Navy, where he served on motor gun-boats escorting larger vessels through the Mediterranean. He returned to New Zealand in 1945. The Repatriation Board supported his studies at Otago University in Dunedin, which Bill supplemented by back-breaking work during vacations in a brewery. His wife was the first medical artist at Otago Medical School. Graduating at the age of 36, he became house surgeon at Dunedin Hospital under Michael Woodruff who, though a fiery and unpredictable chief, supported Bill Richardson in his application for a Nuffield fellowship to study in England. Arriving in London with his wife and son in 1954, he worked for two years at the Bland-Sutton Institute of the Middlesex Hospital. A daughter, Patricia Margaret ('Patsy'), was born in 1956. During this time he worked on breast cancer, as an assistant pathologist, and produced the Scarff-Bloom-Richardson classification of the disease in 1957. He published (jointly with Bloom) ‘The natural history of untreated breast cancer (1805-1933)’, based on the records of the Middlesex Hospital Cancer Charity. Having passed the FRCS in 1955, he became registrar to Oswald Lloyd-Davies, who became his mentor and long-time friend, and, working with R Vaughan Hudson, developed an interest in thyroid diseases. He was appointed consultant at Chase Farm Hospital in 1960. He was an excellent mentor to staff at all levels, retaining links with overseas trainees and teaching them with enthusiasm In addition to his heavy workload for the NHS in general and vascular surgery and urology, he also developed a substantial private practice. In the seventies, when private practice was under threat, he helped set up the private North London Nuffield Hospital, which opened in 1976. He loved to travel and spoke fluent Italian. When his wife developed encephalitis, he nursed her back to health. After she died in 1989, he returned to Adelaide, where he enjoyed a quiet independent life in his own home, near his family, reading, listening to music and continuing to travel. He died on 27 July 2005, after a short illness. He is survived by Marcus and Patsy. He also had a grandson, Thomas.