Nigel Compston (1918–1986) was a physician of exceptional talent who also had a gift for administration. He was educated at the Royal Masonic School, London, and won a scholarship to study medicine at Cambridge University. After training at Middlesex Hospital, he joined the army. At the end of the war he became a lieutenant colonel and was responsible for the health of the British garrison in Berlin. Compston left the army in 1947 and became a research fellow at Middlesex Hospital, where his work was concerned with multiple sclerosis. He was appointed consultant physician at the Royal Free Hospital in 1954, and as a tribute to his work in planning the new hospital, a ward was named after him by the Duke of Kent in July 1988. He was also consultant to the Royal Masonic Hospital, and to the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers.