Alan Birt was born on 24 June 1915, the son of the Surgeon Dentist to King George V and Queen Mary. Like his father, he was educated at Wellington College and St Thomas's Hospital, where he qualified with honours in 1937. He held a number of junior appointments there and was later appointed senior r

David Wallace was one of the foremost urological surgeons in Britain after the second world war, and his work with Dr Roger Pugh at the Institute of Urology led to important advances in our understanding of urological malignancies. Working with Julian Bloom he also set up a multi-centre trial for th

Walpole Sinclair Lewin was born on August 20, 1915. His father died while he was very young. After a brilliant career at school he entered university as an exhibitioner and qualified from University College Hospital in 1939. After resident appointments at UCH he proceeded to FRCS in 1940 and at the

Maurice Ewing, first professor of surgery at Melbourne University, was born in Edinburgh on 6 July 1912, the youngest of four sons of Thomas Miller Ewing, master mariner, who, like his father and grandfather, was a captain in the Northern Lighthouse Service, and his wife Annabel Rossie. He was educa

Franz Konrad Saddler Hirschfeld was born on 26 April 1904 in Brisbane, son of Dr Eugen Hirschfeld, a graduate of Strasbourg University, who emigrated to Australia in 1890, to become the first honorary bacteriologist to the Royal Brisbane Hospital and later honorary physician. Konrad was educated at