Born in London on 13 April 1880, one of the five sons of Briton Riviere RA, the distinguished painter of animals, and Mary Alice Dobell his wife, he was educated at St Paul's School, St Andrews University, and St Bartholomew's Hospital where he was house surgeon. He was house physician at the General Hospital, Birmingham, and clinical assistant at the East London Hospital for Children. He took the Fellowship in 1906 and went into partnership at Norwich in 1908. He was appointed surgeon to the Jenny Lind Hospital, but in a few years his health broke down. He went to Switzerland and South Africa in search of a healthier climate, but returned to his practice in 1916, to help in the shortage of doctors which was due to the war service of the majority. Recurring ill-health forced him to retire in 1926 at the age of 46, and he settled at Woodbastwick near Wortham outside Norwich. He was soon invited to join the board of the Norwich Union Insurance Society of which he became a vice-president, and was also a trustee of the East Anglian Trustee Savings Bank. His chief interest was ornithology. He was treasurer of the Norfolk Naturalists' Trust for many years and wrote several articles on the habits of individual birds in their *Transactions*. His *History of the Birds of Norfolk* (1930) became at once the standard work on its subject. He was a co-opted member of the Norwich Museums Committee for more than twenty-five years, and a member of the Norfolk and Norwich Art Circle for which he made some beautiful small sculptures. He married Veronica Mack, who survived him with their three sons. Riviere died at Salhouse Lodge, Norfolk on 27 December 1953 aged 73.