Born at Barnsley on 20 November 1878, the sixth son of Thomas Braithwaite, master coachmaker, and his wife, *née* Wadsworth. He was educated at Heath Grammar School before entering the Leeds Medical School, then a constituent of the Victoria University, where he had a brilliant career. He was elected university scholar in 1900, and graduated MB, ChB with first-class honours in 1903. In 1905 he received the same degrees from the newly constituted University of Leeds and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in December 1907 without having previously taken the Membership. Braithwaite's surgical career was closely connected with the Leeds School and the General Infirmary at Leeds in their greatest periods, and he added to their fame. He was dresser and house surgeon under Edward Ward, house physician and resident surgical officer, and was elected assistant surgeon to the infirmary in 1909. In 1910 he became personal assistant to Moynihan and continued to assist him at the infirmary and in private practice till 1925. In 1924 Braithwaite was elected surgeon to the infirmary and retired as consulting surgeon in 1938. He was also consulting surgeon to the Dewsbury and Pontefract Infirmary and to the Ilkley Coronation Hospital. At Leeds University he was professor of clinical surgery and received the title of emeritus on retiring in 1938. He was commissioned captain, RAMC(T) on 1 May 1910, served in France and also at Salonika during the war of 1914-18, and was promoted major. During the second war he was medical superintendent of the Leeds Infirmary under the emergency medical service scheme, and inspector of Red Cross hospitals for Yorkshire. He was a Fellow of the Association of Surgeons and a member of the Leeds and West Riding Medical Society, and served as vice-president of the section of surgery at the Belfast meeting of the British Medical Association in 1937. He took much interest in the cancer problem and served on the Yorkshire council of the British Empire Cancer Campaign, encouraging their research schemes. At the College he served on the Council from 1933, being in his second year as vice-president when he died. He gave the Arris and Gale lectures in 1923, the second Moynihan lecture on the London foundation in 1941, and the Bradshaw lecture on 12 November 1942 when he appeared to be in his usual good health, only a month before his death. He served on the editorial committee of the *British Journal of Surgery* from 1926 to July 1939. He lived at 17 Burton. Crescent, Headingley, and practised at 45 Park Square, Leeds. He married on 4 October 1910 Lilian Gaunt, who survived him with three daughters. He died at Burton Grange, Headingley of a cerebral abscess on 18 December 1942, aged 64. His body was cremated after funeral services at St Chad's church, Headingley and the General Infirmary Chapel, Leeds. Braithwaite was a brilliant scientific surgeon who worthily upheld the great Leeds tradition. Moynihan called him "unsurpassed", and Gordon-Taylor speaks of his "artistry and gentleness rivalling those of Moynihan himself" and describes a gastrojejunostomy by Braithwaite as probably the most accomplished operation he had ever watched. He made one of the first completely successful excisions of a subclavian aneurysm in Britain, of which he published a brief and simple description in the *British Journal of Surgery*, 1920, 7, 390. Halsted in America had performed the operation as long before as 1890. He was fairly tall, of pleasing aspect, fair-complexioned and young-looking, with a simple charm of manner and a drawling voice. He was a collector of pictures, and enjoyed the good talk at the Leeds Conversation Club. His judgment was much valued by his colleagues both in surgery and affairs. *Portrait*: His portrait in oils by Frank O Salisbury, CVO was presented on behalf of a body of subscribers by Prof Digby Chamberlain to the Board of the General Infirmary at Leeds, and unveiled in the board-room by Mrs Braithwaite on 2 March 1945; she had previously given the Royal College of Surgeons a replica of it by the artist. Publications:- Excision of a subclavian aneurysm. *Brit J Surg*. 1920, 7, 390. Tuberculosis of glands in the ileocaecal angle. *Brit J Surg*. 1926, 13, 439. Surgical treatment of chronic duodenal and gastric ulcer. *Lancet*, 1926, 1, 900. Modern views on appendicitis. *Leeds Univ med soc Mag*. 1933, 3, 57. The role of bile in duodenal regurgitation (Bradshaw Lecture RCS, 1942). *Brit J Surg*. 1943, 31, 3.