Jean-Pierre van Besouw, known to most simply as 'J-P', was a consultant anaesthetist and honorary senior lecturer at St George's Hospital, London and president of the Royal College of Anaesthetists from 2012 to 2015. He was born on 20 April 1957 in Dublin, Ireland, the son of Jos and Anne van Besouw

Frankis Tilney Evans was born on 9 March 1900. He trained at St Bartholomew's Hospital but in the first world war was seconded to the RNVR during his clinical course, serving in destroyers on convoy duty and in minesweepers. Thus began a lifelong love of the sea and ships. Returning to Bart's he gra

Ashley Skeffington Daly was born on 12 July 1882, his father being an MD in practice in Hackney. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors School and the London Hospital and qualified MRCS, LRCP in 1905. He obtained the DA England in 1935 and was one of the first to practise anaesthetics as a speciali

John Edmund Riding was a distinguished anaesthetist who became dean of the Faculty of Anaesthetists at the Royal College of Surgeons and a member of the RCS Council in 1976. He grew up in Ormskirk in Lancashire and attended King George V Grammar School in Southport. It was there that he probably acq

Ivan Magill was born at Larne, Northern Ireland on 23 July 1888 the son of Samuel, a draper and Sara (née Whiteside). He was educated at Larne Grammar School and Queen's University, Belfast, a strong young man of "enviable physique" being a rugby forward and a heavy-weight boxer for the university.

Geoffrey Organe was born in Madras on 25 December 1908, the elder son of the Reverend William E H Organe KiH, a missionary, and his wife Alice, née Williams, the daughter of a mining engineer. His early education was at Taunton School before going to Christ's College, Cambridge, where he was honorar

Robert Reynolds Macintosh was born in Timaru, New Zealand, on 17 October 1897 the son of Charles N Macintosh, a surveyor who had been a member of the first rugby football team representing New Zealand abroad in 1893, and his wife Beatrice, née Thompson. He was educated at Waitaki Boys' High School a

John Wyman, known to his friends as 'Jabe' or 'JB', was born in London on 24 May 1916, the son of Louis Wyman, who was in the clothing business, and his wife Bertha. He was educated at Davenant Foundation School and King's College London, going on to the Westminster Hospital Medical School for his c

Unfortunately the College lost touch with Alexander Gonsalves. He was born on 8 December 1935. After passing the FRCS he emigrated to Sacramento, California, where he was in practice as an anaesthetist at the Kaiser Permante Medical Centre. He died on 1 November 2001.

Sir Donald Campbell was a former professor of anaesthesia at the University of Glasgow and President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow from 1992 to 1994. He was born on 8 March 1930 at Rutherglen, near Glasgow, the son of Archibald Peter and Mary Campbell. He attended Hutche

Thomas Cecil Gray was the first professor of anaesthesia at Liverpool University and undoubtedly one of the great British pioneers of modern anaesthesia. He was born in Liverpool on 11 March 1913, the son of Thomas Gray, a local publican, and Ethelreda Unwin. A devout Roman Catholic, Cecil was educa

Anaesthesia was introduced into surgery in 1846 and for the first 100 years little progress was made. It remained essentially a craft learned by experience rather than a science. Full-time anaesthetists were rare, anaesthetics being administered by general practitioners or any hospital doctors. The