Born at Bungay, entered University College Hospital in 1844. Among his friends and contemporaries were Richard Quain (qv) and William Cadge (qv), of Norwich. After qualifying in 1847 he joined the West India Mail Steamship Service, and passed through the yellow fever epidemic of 1848. From 1853 he was in the Peninsula and Oriental Company’s Service until he went to the Crimea in 1855, where he was in charge of the transport of the sick and wounded from Balaclava to Scutari. At the end of the war he sailed for India, and on the way was shipwrecked along with Sir Henry Havelock, then on his way to command the forces suppressing the mutiny. Next he saw service in the China war of 1860, and afterwards practised for a time in Shanghai. Whilst there he joined in 1861 Captain Blakiston and Colonel Sarel in an exploration of the Yangtsze-kiang River above Hankow up to Pingshan on the Thibet border, for which he and his two companions each received the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. After Barton’s return to England he passed the FRCS examination, graduated MD at St Andrews in 1865 and 1866, and finally lived in retirement in Brechin Place, South Kensington, until his death on July 4th, 1905. Survived by his widow, one daughter, and three sons. Publication: “Notes on the Yangtsze-kiang,” –* Jour. Royal Geographical Soc.*, 1862.