Born at Liverpool on 23 October 1882, the eldest child of George Stobie, electrical engineer, and Nellie Williams, his wife. His early life was spent in South Africa. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital, qualifying in 1911, having qualified as a dentist the previous year. He was appointed in 1915 assistant surgeon at the Royal Dental Hospital, where he had studied dentistry. During the war of 1914-18 he served as a surgeon specialist under Sir Frank Colyer at the Croydon War Hospital for Injuries of the Jaws. He became dean and lecturer at the Royal Dental Hospital College in 1920, was elected surgeon in 1930, and from 1932 to 1936 was postgraduate instructor in oral surgery. He was appointed the first University of London professor of dental surgery and pathology, with a chair at the Royal Dental Hospital, in 1939. He examined in dentistry for the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Durham, Leeds, and London. During the second world war he was consulting dental surgeon to the Army with the rank of brigadier. Stobie was a vice-president of the Medical Protection Society, and served as president of the Metropolitan branch of the British Dental Association and of the section of odontology at the Royal Society of Medicine. He was elected FRCS, as a member of 20 years' standing, in 1945, and was among the foundation Fellows of the new Faculty of Dental Surgery at the College in 1947. Stobie married in 1912 Emmeline Mary, daughter of F M Guanziroli. Mrs Stobie survived him with two sons, one of whom qualified LDS in 1940. He died at 11 Mulgrave Road, Sutton, Surrey, on 27 April 1948, aged 65. He was buried at Sutton cemetery, and a memorial service was held at St Martin's-in-the-Fields on 6 May 1948.