Robert Lindsay-Rea was born in Belfast in 1881 and went to school there, and proceeded to Queen's University where he obtained the BSc degree with honours in 1912, and graduated MB BCh BAO with honours in 1915. He served in the army in the first world war, and supervised the X-ray work of the 4th Army in the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1918. He held junior hospital posts in Belfast, but continued postgraduate training at the London Hospital, Middlesex Hospital, and in Paris, passing the FRCS in 1920 and graduating MD MCh in Belfast the same year. Lindsay-Rea then specialised in ophthalmology and became consultant surgeon to the Western Ophthalmic Hospital, and oculist to the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases. He wrote a book on neuro-ophthalmology and contributed several papers on ophthalmological subjects to the medical journals. He was a member of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom, and of the Oxford Ophthalmological Congress, and rarely missed any of their annual meetings. He was a friendly character and had a large private practice, He married Mary Eleanor, daughter of James Waddell of Glasgow, and they had two sons and two daughters. He died on 28 April 1971.