Arthur Reginald Lister was born in Totteridge, north of London, on 4 April 1895 into a distinguished medical family. Lord Lister was his great-uncle, his father, Sir William Lister, and his cousin, Arthur Lister, were well-known eye surgeons, and one of his brothers was a consultant physician at Plymouth. He was at school at Winchester, and then went on to Trinity College, Cambridge, but when war broke out in 1914, at the end of his first year at the university, he volunteered for army service and was attached to the field artillery. He served in Gallipoli and in France and was awarded the Military Cross. After the war he completed his pre-clinical studies at Cambridge and then came to the London Hospital where he qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1923. He held house appointments under Lord Dawson and Henry Souttar, whom he assisted in his first operation for mitral stenosis. In 1925 he completed the MB BCh and also obtained the FRCS. He then settled in York where for some years he undertook general practice as well as surgery and gynaecology; but in time he gave up general practice, and with the advent of the National Health Service he specialized in obstetrics and gynaecology as a consultant to the York (A) Group of Hospitals. Reggie Lister, as he was known to his colleagues and his large circle of friends, was a first class operator, but it was his charm and the personal interest he showed in all his patients which endeared him to them. He had to suffer more than his proper share of illness himself, for he underwent a gastroenterostomy for a duodenal ulcer in 1927 which continued to give him a lot of trouble till a partial gastrectomy was done in 1954, yet he bore all these misfortunes with remarkable courage. Reggie married Margaret, daughter of Rev Carey Taylor, and they had two daughters, the elder of whom became a nurse at Great Ormond Street, and later at Westminster Hospital, and the younger became a physiotherapist. He was a keen golfer, a member of the Royal and Ancient Club at St Andrew's for many years, and will be long remembered as an outstanding personality in the city of York. He died after a long illness on 3 November 1973, and his wife and daughters survived him.