Nicholas Harold Lloyd Ridley. 10 July 1906 — 25 May 2001

Sir Harold Ridley invented and refined the modern miracle of replacing lenses obscured by cataracts with plastic optical lenses, thus rendering a complete cataract cure. This operation, broadly termed the cataract–intraocular lens (IOL) operation, has since brought sight to many millions of people throughout the world, and continues to improve the quality of life of more than 10 million patients worldwide each year.