Thomas McPherson was born in Stratford, Ontario on 1 July 1880, and graduated from McGill University in Arts in 1901 and in Medicine in 1903. He then came to England and obtained the Conjoint Diploma in 1905, and the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1907. On his return to Canada in 1910 he began practice in Salmon Arm, British Columbia, and during the first world war he served overseas from 1916 till 1918 as a Captain in the Canadian Medical Corps. It was after the war, in 1920, that he started practice in Victoria, British Columbia and remained there for the rest of his life. He was on the staff of St Joseph's Hospital and the Royal Jubilee Hospital, and as he maintained his attachment to the Canadian Medical Corps he served on two military hospitals also. During the second world war he was Lieutenant-Colonel with the British Columbia Coast Brigade. "Tommy" McPherson earned a reputation for sound judgement and dexterous surgical technique, and he was also called upon to undertake the presidency of several of the local medical and surgical societies, and in 1949 was President of the Medical Council of Canada. He was an enthusiastic gardener, a good golfer and a gracious host. He was married twice, his first wife having died in 1943, and his elder son Major Thomas Alfred McPherson died in 1955. When he died on 27 July 1965 his second wife and his younger son survived him.