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

Ernest Thom McCartney was born in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, the son of Robert McCartney, a chemist, and his wife, Kathleen, née Thom. He was educated at Coleraine Institute and Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied medicine. He went on to training posts at Victoria Central Hospital, Wallasey,

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

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

Henry Moore was born in Fiji in 1912, and graduated MB BS from Sydney in 1937. Following graduation he came to Britain with two research fellowships in 1938. He served in the RAMC throughout the war in the Middle East, Italy and Western Europe, and was awarded the MC in Belgium (for 'liberating a ca

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

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

Kevin McNamara was born in Auckland on 14 January 1915. His mother died when he was 12, leaving seven children, of whom Kevin was the oldest. His father remarried and had a further nine children. He was educated at the Sacred Heart College, from which he went to Otago University, qualifying at the a

James Alastair Key qualified in Edinburgh in 1939 and passed his FRCS in 1947. Moving to Ottowa, Ontario, Canada he became consultant surgeon to the Toronto General Hospital and medical advisor to the Simcoe County District Health Unit. He is believed to have died in 2001.

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

Eric Musard Nanson was born in Geraldine, South Canterbury, New Zealand, on 4 January 1915, the youngest of five children of Gerald Bouchier Nanson, an Anglican vicar and Gertrude Florence (née Bell). His early education was at the Cathedral Grammar School, Christchurch and at Christ's College, Chri