Professor Sir Harold Ellis

Professor Sir Harold Ellis has sadly passed away on 26th March 2026, aged 100.

Sir Harold went to school at St Olave's and St Saviours Grammar School. He won a scholarship to read medicine at Oxford, qualifying in 1948. He was inspired to undertake surgery by Arthur Elliott Smith, senior surgeon at the Radcliffe Infirmary for whom he was house surgeon (and later senior registrar). He served in the RAMC for two years at the Army neurosurgery unit at Wheatley, which involved regular visits the fledgling spinal injuries unit at Stoke Mandeville founded by Ludwig Guttman.

He won the Hallett prize for the top pass in the FRCS part one, and trained in surgery under Norman Tanner an authority on upper GI surgery. Whilst SR at Oxford he wrote the first edition of 'Clinical Anatomy' which is still in print.

In 1960 he was appointed professor of Surgery at Westminster, where his teaching clinics and teaching ward rounds were legendary.  Sir Harold received a CBE and was Vice president of the Royal College of Surgeons, and launched many trainee surgeons on their careers.

He retired from surgery aged 63 and took up a new career teaching Anatomy at Cambridge and then Guys, where he worked until 2020.

Sir Harold died peacefully in hospital after a three day admission, cared for beautifully by the NHS to whom he had devoted a lifetime.

He is survived by his wife Wendy, a son and daughter and six grandchildren.