Sir Herbert John Seddon CMG FRCS (13 July 1903 – 21 December 1977) was an English orthopaedic surgeon.

He was Nuffield Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Oxford, where his work and publications on peripheral nerve injuries gained him an international reputation.

He went on to study medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, London, graduating MB, BS in 1928 with honours and winning the University Gold Medal.

[1] He was appointed house surgeon at St Bartholomew's Hospital to Sir Holburt Waring, who, like Seddon, had grown up in Lancashire.

Seddon then took up a surgical post at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1930 and the following year he became surgeon in residence at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH) at Stanmore, Middlesex.

He was given the degree of Doctor of Medicine (DM) and Master of Arts from the University of Oxford on appointment to the chair.

In addition he became a professorial fellow of Worcester College, Oxford and for clinical duties he became clinical director at the Wingfield-Morris Hospital,[3] later renamed the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre (NOC) and subsequently part of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.

In addition to treating patients, he advised on physiotherapy services, arranged splint workshops and made suggestions about the rehabilitation for those left disabled by the disease.

With his deputy director J.I.P.James he developed innovative postgraduate teaching programmes in orthopaedics which came to be highly regarded nationally and internationally.

Because of his previous experience of polio in developing countries he served on the Advisory Medical Council of the Colonial Office.

[18] This resulted in a meticulously planned collaborative study which compared the surgical and medical treatment of tuberculosis of the spine.

In the early days of their friendship she did not wish to call him Herbert, a name he disliked, so asked him what his middle initial 'J' stood for.

He was raised in the Plymouth Brethren faith and later became an Anglican, serving as a lay reader in St John's Church, Stanmore.