Born on 14 May 1889 he received his medical education in Liverpool and at the London Hospital. On joining the IMS as a Lieutenant on 26 July 1913, he obtained the first Montefiore Prize and Medal in Military Surgery at the Royal Army Medical College in London in 1913. He served as regimental medi

Richard Butler qualified MRCS LRCP from Cambridge and St Thomas's Hospital in 1927 and he spent his early postgraduate years gaining experience in general and orthopaedic surgery, working for Bristow, Perkins and Trethowan. He became FRCS in 1928 and took the MCh in 1933, winning the Robert Jones Go

Barton Gilbert was a consultant in gynaecology and obstetrics. He was born in Wembley, London, on 28 October 1908. His father, Ernest Jesse Gilbert, was an accountant. His mother, Amy Louise (whose maiden name was also Gilbert), was the daughter of a leather-merchant. His family was descended from W

Archibald Gordon Smith was born at Gourock on 19 December 1898, and was educated at Greenock Academy and Glasgow University where he graduated MB ChB in 1920. During the first world war he interrupted his studies in 1917 and joined the Navy as a Surgeon Probationer. After graduation he became house

Karl Nissen, born in Otago in 1906, had a Danish father and an English mother. He was educated in New Zealand and entered the medical school in Otago, where he qualified in 1932. He first went into general practice before deciding to specialise. He undertook research into several generations of a fa

John Bowie Somerset was born on 6 July 1908 at Mount Morgan, Queensland, the son of H St J Somerset of Melbourne. His early education was at St Peter's College, Adelaide, and in 1926 he entered Trinity College at the University of Melbourne. He qualified in 1931 having obtained second class honours

Born in Glasgow in 1901, he was educated at Glasgow Academy and at Glasgow University. After qualification he held house appointments in Liverpool and then went out to Neyoor, S India to join T H Somervell FRCS, the 1926 Everest climber, at his mission hospital. While there Orr dealt with a large nu

Howard Hanley was an energetic and engaging urologist, one of those who in the early years of the NHS ensured that it would provide for specialist urology at a time when there was considerable opposition from the general surgeons. Howard was born in Hoylake, on the Wirral, on 27 July 1909. His fa

Reginald Theobald Payne was born at Northampton on 15 March 1896. When he was aged 65 he published a remarkable book *The watershed* in which he gave a vivid picture of his childhood and schooldays. He was the eldest of four brothers, and as his father, who had a furniture business in the town, brou

Hermon Taylor was born in Workington on the Cumbrian coast on 11 May 1905. His father, Enoch Oliver Taylor, was a schoolmaster and his mother, Louise née Harrison, a schoolmistress. His father came to London to become Director of Education for Edmonton and Hermon was educated at Latymer School, from

Born 28 August 1907 at Gorleston, near Great Yarmouth, the third child and second son of Frederick William Willway, MRCS 1894, superintendent of the National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, who afterwards lived at Streatham, and of Margaret, his wife, daughter of William Allison, MD Edinburgh 1865, w