G. T. 1878-1960: master of language and surgery

Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor was the pre-eminent British surgeon of the first half of the twentieth century. He became known for his daring cancer surgery which he perfected at the Middlesex Hospital, and he promoted early operation for abdominal gunshot wounds in World War I. During World War II, as a surgeon rear admiral, he was not only an active surgeon in the London region, but he also acted as a significant ambassador for Allied surgery. After the War he was in great demand as an eponymous orator throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain and abroad, and he encouraged many Commonwealth surgeons, particularly those from Australia and New Zealand, to further their training in Britain and then he actively supported them in their later careers. His death following an accident in 1960 was mourned through the surgical world.