John Alun Beynon Thomas was a consultant ENT surgeon to the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, and consultant otologist to the Medical Research Council's Institute of Hearing Research (Welsh section). Thomas was president of the South Western Otolaryngological Society and in 1973 he was elected

Norman Thompson Holden studied medicine at Cambridge University, the Westminster Hospital and Guy's. He was senior registrar to the traumatic and orthopaedic unit at Ashford Hospital, Middlesex, and orthopaedic registrar to Guy's. He was then appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon to the Enfield G

Ross Bloom was born in Leeds on 2 January 1915; his father was a shopkeeper and his mother's maiden name was Fanny Castenberg. He was educated at Cardiff High School and graduated from the University of Wales in 1937, taking the London MB BS, the same year. He obtained the prize for the best first y

Born in Barbados on 21 September 1911, the son of Sir George Laurie Pile CBE, President of the Legislative Council of Barbados, and Emily Elizabeth Lyall, he was educated at Winchester, Caius College, Cambridge and the Middlesex Hospital. After qualifying in 1936 he held house appointments at the Mi

Alexander Digges La Touche, the son of a general practitioner, was born at Ossett, Yorkshire, on 31 December 1899. On leaving Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield, he entered the Royal Naval Colleges at Osborne and Dartmouth before serving as an Executive Officer in the Royal Navy during the fi

John Fairbank was born on 26 June 1912 in London, the only son of Sir Thomas Fairbank, the first orthopaedic surgeon to the Charing Cross Hospital, and Florence Kathleen née Ogilvie. He was educated at Wellesley House, Broadstairs, and then at Rugby and Trinity College, Cambridge, as senior scholar,

Joseph Patrick Irwin Reidy (Pete) was born in London on 30 October 1907, the second son of four brothers and three daughters: his father Jerome Reidy MD was a general practitioner, son of a doctor, who practised in the Commercial Road and who had married an Irish nurse, Miss F W Dawson. His educatio