David Ian Hamilton

David Ian Hamilton was born in Stockton on Tees. His father was a civil engineer whose area of expertise was bridge building. The family moved to London when David was 6, and where the building of the stone Wandsworth Bridge, over the Thames, was his father’s responsibility. David was a keen rugby player at school—being selected for the English Schools’ XV to play against a French schools’ team in April 1949. He decided that he wanted to become a surgeon because it would allow him to use the manual skills, learned from his father, who was an expert handyman.

After national service, he studied medicine …