Born at Richmond, Surrey, 4 April 1863, the sixth child and fourth son of Thomas James Carless, contractor, and Jane Cullen Furze, his wife. He was educated at Carrington Lodge, Richmond, at King's College School, London, and at King's College, where he won the senior scholarship in 1885, and at King's College Hospital. Here and at the University of London he had a distinguished undergraduate career, qualifying for a gold medal in surgery at the BS examination in 1887 and at the MS examination in the following year. In the King's College medical faculty he won the gold medal and prize for botany, the junior scholarship, the second-year scholarship, the senior medical scholarship, the Warneford prize and the Leathes prize. He was appointed house surgeon to King's College Hospital in 1885 and three years later he became Sambrooke registrar. He was elected assistant surgeon to the hospital in 1889, having the good fortune to serve under Lister; became surgeon in 1898, and from 1902 to 1918 was professor of surgery at King's College in succession to William Watson Cheyne. He accepted a commission as major *á la suite* in the territorial service on 16 November 1912, and was gazetted colonel AMS on 22 September 1917, serving at first as surgeon to the 4th London General Hospital and later as consulting surgeon to the Eastern Command; for his services he was created CBE in 1919. He retired from surgical work on demobilization in 1919, resigned his hospital appointments, and devoted himself during the rest of his life to philanthropic work. From June 1919 until 1926 he acted as honorary medical director at Dr Barnardo's Homes, and subsequently lived at Crieff, Perthshire, where he did much good work both locally and generally. In 1898 he published, in collaboration with William Rose, FRCS, a *Manual of surgery* which immediately became a popular text-book. It was translated into Hungarian, Chinese, and Arabic, and had a large sale in the United States. He married Ada Bridger, younger daughter of Major-General G S Dobbie of the Madras army, by whom he had two sons, both killed in action. He died suddenly at Worthing on 27 April 1936. The guiding motive of Carless' life was his deep and abiding interest in evangelical religion. So long as he was in London he was associated with Dr Stuart Holden in his work at St Paul's Church, Portman Square. He was afterwards president of the inter-varsity fellowship of the Evangelical Union. Publication:- *A manual of surgery*, with W Rose. London, 1898; 14th ed. 1933.