Alan Thackray was professor of morbid histology at the Middlesex Hospital and a notable authority on breast, salivary and renal tumours. He was educated at Cambridge University, from which he won the senior university scholarship to the Middlesex Hospital. After house jobs he specialised in pathol

Born on 11 September 1913, the second son of Henry James and Margaret Ann, Norman Henry Ashton was educated at the West Kensington Central School, King's College and Westminster Hospital. There he won the prize for bacteriology and was editor of the *Gazette*. After junior appointments, he specialis