Born in Dublin on 19 May 1870, the third child and third son of John Rigby, ordnance engineer, sometime superintendent of the Royal Small Arms factory at Enfield, and Julia, his wife, daughter of Thomas Mallinson of Huddersfield. He was educated at Bray School, Co Wicklow, at Dulwich College, and at University College, London. His medical training he received at the London Hospital, with which he remained throughout his career. He won the gold medal at the BS examination of 1897. He served the Hospital as house surgeon, house physician, and surgical registrar. In the Medical College he was demonstrator of anatomy 1901-03 and the first tutor in elementary clinical surgery 1903-08. He had been elected assistant surgeon in 1902, and duly became surgeon; retiring in 1927 before he reached the age limit, he was appointed consulting surgeon. He kept his large private practice after retiring from the Hospital. Rigby was also surgeon to the City of London Maternity Hospital, to the East Ham Hospital, and to the cottage hospitals at Beckenham and Cheshunt, and consulting surgeon to the Poplar Accident Hospital. During the South African war Rigby had collaborated with Arthur Keith in a study of gunshot wounds (*Lancet*, 1899, 2, 1499), and he was commissioned a captain in the RAMC(T) on 19 March 1910. During the first world war he was a consulting surgeon to the British Expeditionary Force in France and to the London district with the temporary rank of colonel, AMS. He was promoted temporary lieutenant-colonel, RAMC(T) on 10 January 1917 and brevet major 3 June 1917, and he was mentioned in despatches. Rigby served as surgeon in ordinary to Queen Alexandra, who died in 1925; and he was surgeon in ordinary to the Prince of Wales from 1923 until his accession to the throne as King Edward VIII in 1936, and surgeon to the Prince's household. From 1928 to 1932 he was Serjeant Surgeon to King George V, and from 1932 to 1936 Honorary Surgeon to His Majesty. When the King was taken seriously ill with empyema in December 1928, Rigby performed the operation which saved his life. He had been made a KCVO on 20 December 1917, and was created a Baronet, of Long Durford, Rogate, Sussex, on 24 June 1929. Although of English parentage and making his career in England, Rigby retained the affection and admiration of his early Irish friends. He was elected an Hon FRCSI in 1931, and Hon MCh of the National University in 1933. Rigby married on 12 October 1911 Flora, daughter of Norman Macbeth, who survived him with two sons and two daughters. His elder son Hugh John Macbeth Rigby was commissioned in the Royal Engineers. Rigby died in a nursing home on 17 July 1944, aged 74. A memorial service was held at St Peter's Church, Petersfield. Rigby's sister married Lewis Smith, MD, FRCP, consulting physician to the London Hospital, his life-long colleague and friend. Mrs Smith died shortly before her brother, and Dr Lewis Smith a few months later; they had no children (see *Lond Hosp Gaz* 1944, 47, 272-274, where Smith's obituary, with portrait, follows immediately on Rigby's). Rigby did not write much or take much part in professional activities. He made his reputation as a sound surgeon and a very modest, upright man. His attendance on the King at the greatest crisis of his life brought Rigby into public notice, which he would never have sought. After retirement his chief recreation was gardening at his country house, Long Durford, Rogate near Petersfield, on the Sussex-Hampshire border. Publications: Effects of bullets, with Arthur Keith. *Lancet*, 1899, 2, 1499. Seven cases of acute intussusception in nine days at the London. *Lancet*, 1903, 1, 364. Pulsating exophthalmos. *Ann Surg* 1904, 39, 649. The operative treatment of calculi in the pelvic portion of the ureter. *Ibid* 1907, 46, 793. Operative treatment of fracture of the patella. *Practitioner*, 1905, 74, 604. Diseases of the oesophagus, in Choyce's *System of Surgery*, London, 1912.