Percival John Moir was born in Glasgow on 26 July 1893 to Frederick Moir, a calico printer, and his wife Constance Ada, née Dickie. He attended Kelvinside Academy and Glasgow University, qualifying in 1914. He served as house surgeon to the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, for three to four months before joining the RAMC and serving throughout the first world war in Gallipoli, Egypt, Palestine and France with the rank of Captain. He was awarded the Military Cross and mentioned in dispatches. Returning to Glasgow in 1919 he was appointed lecturer in the department of anatomy before taking his FRCS in 1923. A year later he was appointed honorary assistant surgeon to the General Infirmary Leeds. He was influenced in these early years by Lord Moynihan, whose house surgeon he had been, Sir William Macewen, Sir George Beatson and L R Braithwaite. Moir was a neat and tidy surgeon who read widely and attended many meetings with the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland and the Moynihan Club. He introduced many new technical procedures to Leeds and gradually became accepted by his colleagues in his adopted home. His commanding presence, reserved manner and self-assurance made him sometimes appear rather aloof - even from his fellow Scots, whom he never cultivated and never entertained. In 1940, Moir was appointed Professor of Surgery to the University of Leeds and in 1952 assumed the position of Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Professor of Clinical Surgery. He was a member of the Leeds Regional Hospital Board from 1948 and the Board of Governors of the United Leeds Hospitals from 1952. He was a member of the General Medical Council from 1952 to 1960 and in his time served on the Court of Examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. His hobbies were reading, bridge, golf and art. Regrettably, these interests were curtailed in his last years by Parkinsonism and failing sight. He died on 8 December 1981 at the age of 87, survived by his wife, Joan, whom he married in 1926 and his son Alan.