Born on 14 September 1880, only son of William Athelstan Blaxland, solicitor to the LCC, he was educated at Westminster School and University College Hospital. After qualifying he held house appointments at UCH, the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, and the Royal National Hospital and then for eighteen months at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. In 1907 he joined his uncle in general practice in Norwich. In 1909 he was appointed assistant surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital but continued in general practice up to the start of the 1914-18 war when he joined the RAMC, most of his service being spent in France as surgeon at a casualty clearing station. On his return to civil life he gave up general practice and rapidly built up a large consulting surgical practice. He was elected full surgeon to the Hospital in 1925. In 1930-31 he was President of the Norfolk branch of the BMA, and he was a Vice-President of the Medical Defence Union. Blaxland was a keen but unorthodox tennis player, a golfer and a shot, altogether a whimsical but lovable character. He married Anne Marion Andrews, who died a few months before him. They had three sons, one of whom is a member of the profession. Blaxland died on 7 December 1963 in a Norwich nursing home. The funeral service was held in Norwich Cathedral.