William Mackenzie Robb was the only child of Robert Robb and Jeannie, née Mackenzie, born at Kiltearn in Rosshire. He attended Blairgowrie High School, Perthshire, before entering medical school at Edinburgh University. He qualified with first class honours in 1922. In his house appointments he was influenced by Alexander Miles and Sir Henry Wade to embark on a career in surgery. He studied in London at both St Bartholomew's and St Mary's Hospitals and was awarded his FRCS in 1927. He moved to Birmingham as casualty officer at the Children's Hospital and then to Bolton Infirmary and Bradford Royal Infirmary as RSO. In 1930 he was appointed to the senior surgical staff at Dudley Road Hospital, Birmingham, which he served until his retirement in 1962. Without junior staff and sharing emergencies with two surgical colleagues he had 100 personal beds in a hospital of 900 beds and some 20,000 annual admissions: he had found the wealth of surgical experience he sought. After just a year he suffered a tendon sheath infection which put him off work for six months and left him with a rigid extended left index finger, which he found singularly little handicap. In 1947 the senior surgical staff doubled and adequate juniors were appointed. Robb still continued to take his full share of emergencies and developed a special interest in thyroid and abdominal surgery. His advice and experience were always available to his junior colleagues with whom he had the happiest relationships. He served on the hospital management committee and in 1961 he was President of the West Midlands Surgical Society. His reputation as a surgeon was equalled by that as a golfer. Robb was Highland Amateur Champion in 1929, played for Scotland against Wales in 1935, was captain of Moseley Golf Club in 1933-34 and president in 1960, and in 1967 president of the Midland Counties Golf Association. He won the Worcester open championship in 1951. It was generally believed that he would have been more frequently capped for Scotland if he had not put surgery before his golf. In 1936 he married Kathleen Harvey Gibbs and the forty-eight years of family life which followed were intensely happy. When he died on 22 November 1983 aged 84 his wife and his son, Andrew, and daughter, Alison, survived him.