Born 1 September 1867 at Staines, the eldest child of Edward Low, architect, and his wife, née Birch. He was educated at Cranleigh School and at St Mary's Hospital. He took first-class honours in the London BS examination and, though he took the Fellowship in the same year and intended to practise surgery, he proceeded to the MD two years later. From 1899 to 1902 he served as a civil surgeon with the South African Field Force, winning the Queen's Medal with seven clasps. On his return to England he was elected assistant surgeon at the Great Northern Hospital and soon afterwards assistant surgeon to St Mary's, where he duly became lecturer in surgery, surgeon, and consulting surgeon, and was elected a governor and vice-president of the Hospital. He first came into prominence by his remarkable operative treatment of upper-arm palsy in children, reported jointly with Wilfred Harris, MRCP, at the annual meeting in 1903 of the British Medical Association. Basing his surgery on the latest physiological researches of Sherrington, Ballance, and others, he successfully undertook cross-union of the nerve roots. During the war he served as a temporary colonel, Army Medical Service, having been commissioned captain *à la suite* on the formation of the Royal Army Medical Corps (Territorial Force) on 6 December 1908. He was at the Dardanelles and in Egypt as consulting surgeon to the troops in the Mediterranean, was mentioned in despatches and created a Companion of the Bath (military division) in 1916. Low was consulting surgeon to several cottage hospitals and chief consulting surgeon to the London Midland and Scottish Railway. He was an active member of the Court of the Royal Sea-bathing Hospital at Margate. At the University of London he served in the Senate and was an examiner in surgery; he also examined for the Universities of Cambridge and Liverpool. At the Royal College of Surgeons he served on the Court of Examiners, of which he became chairman, from 1918 to 1928, and on the board of examiners in dental surgery 1921-23. He was a member of Council from 1916 to 1933, and vice-president in 1928 and 1929. He joined the Society of Apothecaries in 1914, becoming a Warden, a position to which he had just been re-elected at the time of his death. He was an active attendant at medical societies, becoming president 1919 and a trustee of the Medical Society of London, and president of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1932, having already been president of the section of surgery 1927-28. He also served on the council of King Edward's Hospital Fund for London. Low married in 1902 Mabel, eldest daughter of John Ashby, JP, of The Close, Staines. Mrs Low was a distinguished painter. She survived him with four sons and two daughters; their youngest son rowed in the Oxford boat in 1930. Low practised at 76 Harley Street, and died on 2 September 1942, aged 74, having been for some years crippled with arthritis. He was buried at Golders Green and a memorial service was held at St Mary's Hospital Chapel on 5 September. Mrs Low wrote a memoir of her husband (see below), she herself died on 18 July 1947. Low was an excellent general surgeon and a sound man of affairs. Of strong conservative opinions, he was tolerant and courteous, and a most loyal friend. Portly and rubicund, he was a centre of good talk at many medical gatherings, and even when severely crippled he retained his cheerful affability. He was a keen promoter of the social side of professional life, and compiled an account of the College Council Club, which he had managed with great success for many years. In freemasonry he was a past-master of the Sancta Maria Lodge at St Mary's Hospital and a member of the United Grand Lodge of England. Publications: On the importance of accurate muscular analysis in lesions of the brachial plexus, and the treatment of Erb's palsy and infantile paralysis of the upper extremity by cross-union of the nerve roots; with W Harris. *Brit med J* 1903, 2, 1035. Lectures on Richter's hernia. *Lancet*, 1905, 1, 205. Treatment of surgical tuberculosis. *Ibid* 1907, 1, 52. Two cases of haemorrhage into the testicle. *Trans Med Soc Lond* 1909, 32, 45.