David Pratt was a consultant general and vascular surgeon at St James’s University Hospital, Leeds. He studied medicine in Leeds, where he had a distinguished undergraduate career, gaining first class honours and graduating with distinctions in surgery and forensic medicine. After house appointments

Reg Bolam was a locum consultant general surgeon. He was born on 3 January 1924 in south London, the first of the three children of Harriet and Frederick Bolam. He grew up in Streatham and won a scholarship to Bec College, was in the top stream, joined several public libraries and borrowed several b

David John Dyson Perrins was an expert in the use of hyperbaric oxygen and a former MRC research fellow at Churchill Hospital, Oxford. Born in 1924, he studied medicine at Jesus College, Cambridge, and rowed for the university in the 1946 Boat Race. He completed his clinical studies at St Thomas's,

Kelvin Thomas was a consultant surgeon at Nottingham General and King Mill hospitals. He was born in Hong Kong on 11 November 1926, the son of George Harold Thomas, a surgeon, and Nora née Gourdin. His father was formally admitted as a fellow by election by Sir Arthur Porritt in 1961, who went to Ho

John Matheson was a former professor of military surgery at the Royal Army Medical College, Millbank, London. He was born in Gibraltar on 6 August 1912, the son of John Matheson, the then manager of the Eastern Telegraph station, and Nina. The family later moved on to Malta and then to Port Said. Jo