John Roland Grimoldby was born in Sheffield on 2 April 1912, the son of Edward John Grimoldby, a gentleman's outfitter, and Edith (née Woodcock). He was educated at Barnsley and District Holgate Grammar School and the University of Sheffield. He graduated BSc with first class honours in 1933 before

William Girdwood was born in Johannesburg on 25 May 1913, the son of William, a general practitioner and FRCS Edinburgh. Two uncles and his grandfather were all doctors, training in Edinburgh. After Grey High School, Port Elizabeth, William entered Witwatersrand University and won the South African

Alan Sutherland had some remarkable experiences as a doctor at war. He was a prisoner of war for one day when, as a member of the 6th Field Ambulance, 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force, he was captured by German paratroops during the evacuation from Crete in 1941. They were killed so he escaped. L

Ernest Wells Grahame came from South-West Scotland graduating in Glasgow in 1926. After a short spell in general practice, he decided to concentrate on surgery. He became surgeon and medical superintendent to Middlesborough General Hospital in 1947 where he worked for the rest of his career. The war

John Bryant Curtis qualified MB BS at Melbourne University in 1939. After two years in junior posts at the Royal Melbourne Hospital he served as a medical officer with the Royal Australasian Air Force from 1943 to 1946 and in the latter year gained the MS from his university. In the following year h

Jean Sandel was born towards the end of 1916, her parents' only child, in the small community of Taumarunui, twenty-five miles west of Lake Taupo in the centre of the North Island of New Zealand. She was educated at the Girls' High School, New Plymouth (on the coast, sixty miles west of her home), b

Robert Ellis Gibbins was born in Birmingham on 29 July 1914, the son of David Gibbins, an engineer, and his wife Ethel Emilie, née Rohrbach. He was educated at a number of different schools and at Birmingham University Medical School, where he qualified MB ChB in 1938. After resident jobs at the Que

Donald McIntosh received his medical education at the University of Edinburgh, qualifying MB ChB there in 1936, and was awarded the University's MD in 1942. He gained the Edinburgh Fellowship in 1939 and the English Fellowship in 1947. During the second world war he served in the RAMC with the rank

Murray Greig was a former general surgeon at Waitako Hospital, in Hamilton, New Zealand. He was born on 23 April 1908 in Kirin, Manchuria, where his father, James Alexander Greig (FRCS Edinburgh) and mother, Ella Wallace, served with the Irish Presbyterian mission, establishing a hospital in Kirin b

Thomas Miller (Tom) was born in Fielding, New Zealand, on 24 September 1917, the third son of Thomas Miller, a Presbyterian minister and Marion Meiklem née Strang, the daughter of a sea captain who became marine superintendent of the Union Castle Line. He was educated at the Otago Boys High School a

Donald Patrick Robertson qualified MD from Manitoba University in 1938. He passed the FRCS in 1947. He was surgeon to the Public General Hospital and St Joseph's Hospital in Chatham, Ontario, before joining the surgical staff of the Huntsville District Memorial Hospital in Huntsville, Ontario. He

Stanley Thomas McCollum was a former President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He was born in Athboy, County Meath, on 3 May 1918, where his father, Thomas, was a farmer. His mother was Violet née Roe. From the National School, Athboy, he entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he won th