Brian Fleming was a head and neck surgeon at the Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH). He was born in Zeehan, Tasmania, on 13 February 1927, and was educated in Burnie, before moving to Melbourne to complete his secondary education at Scotch College, graduating in 1943. He was able to make the wartime

Born in Brisbane, Ian Lumsden McVey's early schooling days were spent in Queensland. The family subsequently moved to Melbourne and he finished his schooling at Wesley College. He began medicine at Melbourne University, being a student at the Alfred Hospital and graduated MB BS in 1949 was subseque

John Pendower was a consultant surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital, London and Mayday Hospital, Croydon. He was born on 6 August 1927, less than ten years after the end of the First World War; his father had been a teenage infantryman on the Somme. He grew up through turbulent and exciting times, and

Sri Singha was professor of surgery in Kandy, Sri Lanka. He was born on 14 February 1927, in Moratuwa, in what was then Ceylon, the son of A C Fernando, a doctor from Colombo, whose name he bore when he arrived in the UK. He was educated at St Thomas's College and the Royal College, Colombo, where h

Sir John Cecil Nicholson Wakeley was a consultant general surgeon in Cheshire. He was born in London on 27 August 1926, the first of three boys of Cecil Pembrey Grey Wakeley and Elizabeth Muriel Wakeley née Nicholson-Smith. At the time of John's birth, his father was a surgeon and on the staff at Ki

Jacques ('Jack') Loeb was chief of surgery at the Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, and also an author and anatomist. He was born in Berlin on 31 August 1925, the son of Joseph Loeb, founder of Loeb and Sutheim, one of the most prominent furriers in Europe, and Else

Few surgeons lived their lives as fully as Desmond Albert Cooper, Dr Des. He was an astonishingly good surgeon, a fine man and a man of many talents. As my son said ‘The Doc was funny, generous, kind, helpful, clever, and friendly and a great sailor and a good fisherman.’ Before he died we chatt

John Humphreys was a greatly respected consultant general surgeon in Southport from 1961 to 1990. His main interest was in gastro-intestinal surgery, but he was also a competent urologist. Fully committed to patients under his care, he visited them at weekends to check on their progress. In view of

Mike Ward, a pioneering climber and expert on altitude medicine and physiology, and a member of the 1953 expedition team which made the first ascent of Everest, was a consultant surgeon in London’s East End. He was born in London on 26 March 1925, the son of Wilfred Arthur Ward, a civil servant in M

John James Barclay Hobbs was educated at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College and qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1949, graduating with the London MB, BS, the same year. After holding the post of orthopaedic and casualty house surgeon at the Luton and Dunstable Hospital he did his nation

Philip Henson qualified from St Bartholomew’s in 1939 and after junior posts became surgical registrar at New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton, and senior registrar at the East Glamorganshire Hospital, Ponthpridd. He was senior hospital medical officer in Accident and Emergency at the Manor Hospital, N

Gustav Siegmund ‘Gus’ Plaut was a consultant surgeon at Tooting, London. He was born on 2 September 1921 to Ellen Warburg and Theodor Plaut in Hamburg, both from eminent Jewish banking families. His father was dismissed by the Nazis, and took the post of professor of economics at Hull University, wh