Born at Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, 17 January 1857, the second child and eldest son of Thomas Bickerton, FRCS Ed and Elizabeth Green, his wife. His father began life as a general surgeon and then devoted himself to the treatment of diseases of the eye, ear, and throat, being more particularly interested in ophthalmic work. He was on the staff of the Liverpool Eye and Ear Infirmary from 1857 to 1872, when he was killed as a result of a carriage accident which necessitated amputation of one of his legs; his wife was a Roman Catholic. Thomas H Bickerton was educated at the Liverpool Institute, at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary, the Northern Hospital and the London Hospital. He acted as house surgeon at the Royal Infirmary in 1886, was subsequently ophthalmic surgeon, and resigned in 1919. In 1923 he was elected president of the infirmary. From 1908 he was president of the Liverpool Medical Institution, in the history of which he was greatly interested; he was also for many years a member of the Liverpool Medical and Literary Society, of which he was twice president. He took an active interest in the affairs of the British Medical Association from 1882 to 1930, being secretary of the ophthalmological section in 1897, sectional vice- president in 1903, and president of the section in 1913; furthermore he was treasurer of the Liverpool meeting in 1912. Bickerton married in 1891 Mary Jessie (d 1932), fourth daughter of James Burton of Prestwich. He died at Liverpool on 23 November 1933 and was buried in the Smithdown Road cemetery after a funeral service in Liverpool cathedral. Bickerton was particularly distinguished for his work on colour blindness and its association with disasters at sea. It was largely owing to his advocacy that the Board of Trade revised its rules in regard to tests of sailors' eyesight; he was too a pioneer in advocating the irrigation treatment of ophthalmia neonatorum. From 1917 to 1933 he was lecturer on ophthalmic surgery in the University of Liverpool, where he proved himself to be an enthusiastic and inspiring teacher; as an operator he was skilful, and as an adviser prudent. Bickerton had many interests apart from his profession. He amassed material for a medical history of Liverpool; he was a keen collector of pictures and antiques. He sat on the bench as a Justice of the Peace for Liverpool; he was enthusiastic in the cause of temperance, and he was at one time a keen freemason. Of his two sons, the elder, Herbert Richard Bickerton, MRCS, is an ophthalmic surgeon in Liverpool; the younger, John Myles Bickerton, FRCS, is ophthalmic surgeon to King's College Hospital. Portrait: frontispiece to his posthumous Medical history of Liverpool, 1936. Publications:- *On the utter neglect of the eyesight question in Board of Trade enquiries into shipping disasters*. London, 1895. *History of the Liverpool Medical Institution*. Edinburgh, 1904. A historical sketch of Dr John Rutter, the founder of the Liverpool Medical Institution. *Lpool med-chir J*. 1910, 30, 1. *A medical history of Liverpool from the earliest days to 1920*, edited by H R Bickerton and R M B MacKenna. London, 1936.