Leighton Craig Bell was a consultant general surgeon at Pontefract, Castleford and Goole hospitals. He was born in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland, on 17 February 1923 and studied medicine at Queen's University Belfast, qualifying MB BCh BAO in 1945. He gained his FRCS in 1952. Prior to his

Brian Turbett Smyth was a consultant paediatric surgeon at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children and Ulster Hospital. He was born in Londonderry in Northern Ireland on 2 November 1921, the son of William and Flora West Lindsay Smyth. His father was a merchant. He was educated at Coleraine Aca

George Keith Thomas was a former consultant surgeon at Orillia Soldiers' Memorial Hospital, Ontario, Canada. He was born in Whitchurch, Shropshire, the son of Bert Thomas, a bank manager, and Maud Eleanor Thomas née Beatty. His sister, Patricia, also became a doctor. He was educated at Whitchurch Gr

David Bell was a surgeon at Belfast City Hospital. The son of William George Thompson Bell, a farmer and mill-owner from Cookstown, Northern Ireland, and Emma Jane Bell, he was born on 20 June 1920. A great uncle, cousin and brother were all doctors. From the Rainey Endowed School he went to Queen’s

John Oscar Reginald Stewart, known as ‘Oscar’, was one of three general surgeons serving the whole of Lincolnshire from Lincoln County Hospital in the days when no government targets had to be reached and, as a result, waiting lists were small. He was born in Belfast on 2 November 1922. His father,