Following studies at St John's College, Cambridge, he achieved a place in medical training at the Middlesex Hospital, was awarded a university scholarship and was appointed as a dresser (assistant) and house-surgeon to Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor.

Later, his obituary commented that "the gods gave him good teachers and the casualties of a crippling war extensive experience".

The treatment of war injuries, taught by surgeons Pierre Delbet and G E Gask, were applied to peacetime diseases.

He remained a consulting surgeon to King Edward VII's Sanatorium at Midhurst and to Queen Alexandra's Hospital, Millbank.

As surgeon under the Ministry of Pensions to Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton he accomplished valuable work in the restoration of the aftermath of war-time gastric operations.

He also oversaw the London County Council's Thoracic Clinic at St Mary Abbott's Hospital, Kensington.

Here, in one day, he would complete an outpatient clinic, an extensive ward, round followed by up to eight major lung and heart operations.

Described as "a tiger for work, seemingly untiring and unaware that he might be tiring others", he was assisted at the Brompton by Price Thomas and anaesthetist Ivan Magill.

In the ultimate years of his life, he was nominated the first president of the new Association for the Study of Diseases of the Chest and contributed a survey of one thousand operations for bronchial carcinoma to the first number of its journal Thorax.

Dwight Harken from the USA, took up a visiting fellows post with Tudor Edwards in 1942[6][7] later, ironically competing with another trainee, Sir Russell Brock.

[6] Edwards was the inspiration for Clement Price Thomas, the surgeon who performed the thoracotomy on King George VI in 1951.