Born in 1895 at Glasgow, he was educated at Grosvenor School, Carlisle and apprenticed to a chemist there. He served in the Black Watch through the war of 1914-18 and then began his medical training at King's College Hospital, where he served as house surgeon and surgical registrar after qualifying in 1927. He was also house surgeon at the Belgrave Children's Hospital. In 1930 he took the Fellowship and was appointed clinical director of the Hillingdon County Hospital, Uxbridge. He went into general practice at Longtown, Cumberland in 1934 and was also obstetric consultant to the County Council. During the war of 1939-45 he served in the RAMC in command of military hospitals in Palestine and India; in the last year of the war he was in command of the surgical division of the 110th General Hospital in Normandy and Belgium, took part in the early clinical trials of penicillin, and was awarded the OBE. He was medical officer to the Westmorland and Cumberland Yeomanry and retired with the rank of Colonel in 1952. Rutherford married in 1931 Nora M Barrett, who survived him with two sons and three daughters. He died at Cobbinshaw House, Longtown on 19 August 1958, aged 63. Publications: Excision of oesophagus for carcinoma. *Brit J Surg* 1934, 22, 340. Congenital valvular obstruction in prostatic urethra. *Brit J Child Dis* 1934, 31, 297. Hospital organisation in the field (tented). *JRAMC* 1942, 79, 176.