Sir Terence Alexander Hawthorne English KBE FRCS FRCP (born October 1932)[1] is a South African-born British retired cardiac surgeon.

[2] Born into a family of mixed Irish, Afrikaans, Yorkshire and Scottish descendants, English's father died at age 49, leaving his mother to bring up two children in South Africa.

After completing a degree in Mining Engineering in Johannesburg, he was inspired by a maternal uncle, who was a surgeon, to study medicine, and with the financial aid of an unexpected legacy travelled to London.

[5][9][10] After leaving school at the age of seventeen, English worked for a year in what was then Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), as a diamond driller with the Cementation Company (Africa) Ltd on a dam near Salisbury (now Harare).

[4] English applied to Guy's Medical School and was accepted by the Dean, George Houston providing he finished his engineering degree successfully.

[3] After completing medical school and internship,[5] English started his surgical training with leading surgeons including Donald Ross[5] and Sir Russell later Lord Brock.

[9] A clinical moratorium on heart transplants in the UK was announced by Sir George Godber, Chief Medical Officer (United Kingdom) in February 1973.

Three months after the moratorium on heart transplantation, English became inspired by a visit to his friend Philip Caves, at Stanford University, who had developed the technique of transvenous endomyocardial biopsy to detect acute organ rejection at an early stage, and was then Chief Resident in Shumway's unit.

This advance and better knowledge of how to use drugs for immunosuppression had led to a significant improvement in results at Stanford and he decided that it was time for the UK to have its own programme of heart transplantation based on what he had seen there.

So in October 1973 formal meetings began between surgical colleagues at Papworth and Sir Roy Calne at Addenbrooke's where there was already an active programme of kidney and liver transplantation.

By the end of 1977 English felt ready to embark on a clinical programme and submitted his plans to the Transplant Advisory Panel (TAP) of the Department of Health.

[11] However, English managed to obtain permission from the Chairman of Cambridge Health Authority to use his facilities at Papworth for two transplants and after the first failed in January 1979, the second in August 1979 was successful and the patient Keith Castle lived for over five years.