Peter Walton received his medical education at the University of Edinburgh, where he qualified MB ChB in 1937. In the second world war he served as a surgeon-lieutenant RNVR, and after the war he had a house post at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, before becoming surgical tutor at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh. Returning to England, he became consulting surgeon to the Royal Infirmary, Hull, and other hospitals in the same city, including the Childrens' Hospital and the Western General Hospital. Later he worked at the East Riding General Hospital, Driffield. He was the author of the chapter: 'Bones: Acute and Chronic Infections' in *British Surgical Practice* (1948). He retired at the end of 1981 and died on 23 September 1993.