Born 12 September 1874 at Feldafing, Starnberg, Bavaria, eldest child of Edward Theodore Compton, landscape painter, and his wife Auguste Pletz. He was educated at Uppingham and at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was for a time prosector in the hospital's medical college and at the Royal College of Surgeons, and lecturer on anatomy at King's College in the Strand, and became a member of the Anatomical Society. After serving as assistant medical officer at St Mary's Infirmary, Highgate Hill, he joined the staff of the German Hospital, Dalston, E in 1908, to which he devoted the rest of his life, becoming consulting surgeon in 1939. Compton married first, in 1902, Lucy Lumb, who died in 1936, and secondly, in 1938, Violet Lowe, who survived him. There were no children of either marriage. In 1938 he retired to Westfield, Seaton, Devon, but returned to the German Hospital on the outbreak of war in September 1939. Unfortunately he was struck almost at once by a cerebral haemorrhage which left him with a left hemiplegia. He returned to Devon, where he had the misfortune to have his house bombed, and subsequently fractured his hip. He died in the German Hospital on 9 September 1942, aged 68. Compton inherited his father's taste for walking and alpine climbing. He was a man much beloved by his colleagues and patients. Publications:- *Essentials of surgery*. London, 1908. Intrinsic anatomy of large nerve trunks. *J Anat* 1917, 51, 103. Acute haemorrhagic pancreatitis.*Lancet*, 1921, 1, 130. Appendicitis with multiple abscesses in peritoneal cavity, and metastatic abscesses in left lung. *St Barts Hosp Rep* 1940, 40, 143.