Duncan Gillard Churcher was born at Dunoon, Scotland, on 4 October 1894, one of six children of Dr Thomas Churcher, a medical missionary, and Margaret, née Robertson, an Edinburgh trained nurse. He was educated at the City of London School and obtained a scholarship to St Thomas's Hospital which he

George Elkington was born in Newport, Shropshire on 20 March 1889, the eldest child of two general practitioners, Ernest Alfred and Annie Isabella Baddeley. The Baddeley practice had existed in Newport since the 1770's and the Elkington family had practised medicine in Birmingham since the 1830's. G