Born at Glastonbury, Somerset in the 1860s he was educated at the Newcastle School of Medicine, where he took honours, and at the Middlesex Hospital. He was house surgeon at the Middlesex and Great North Central Hospitals. Visiting Australia in 1895 he took a locum tenancy for Edwin Roberts MRCS of Toowoomba, Queensland, stayed on as Dr Roberts's assistant and ultimately took over his large practice in the Darling Downs area. Falkner practised at Toowoomba for thirty years, was consulting surgeon to the Hospital, and became a prominent and esteemed citizen. He was much interested in education, supported the Toowoomba Grammar School, and was believed to have paid for the medical education of several young men whose parents could not afford the necessary outlay. Falkner was very tall, with a charming voice and kindly manner. He married the third daughter of the Hon W H Walsh of Brisbane. They retired to England in 1927, where he stayed for nearly twenty years and where Mrs Falkner died. After the war of 1939-45 he went again to Queensland, where he settled at Southport, and died there on 13 February 1952, survived by his only daughter, Mrs M Ponsford.