Born in London 20 September 1880, son of James Valentine Austin (1850-1914), a county court judge, and Anna Christina Lorimer, his wife. He was educated at Clifton College and at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he was placed in the first class in Part I of the Natural Sciences Tripos 1902 and in the second class in Part II, 1903. He took his clinical training at the London Hospital, where he served as house physician, house surgeon to C M Moullin, FRCS and to H P Dean, FRCS, in succession to H S Souttar, FRCS, resident accoucheur, and surgical registrar to James Walton, FRCS in 1908. On the outbreak of war in August 1914 Austin went to France as second-in-command of a British Red Cross unit and was captured by the Germans, owing to the treachery of a Belgian driver, after active service at Namur and Mons. He narrowly escaped being hanged for a spy, and was forced to prove his profession by examination in surgery. Six months later he was exchanged through Holland, and was commissioned in the RAMC and subsequently promoted major, serving in charge of the officers' hospital at Rouen. After the war he practised as a surgeon for two years at Bristol, but then went to Canada where he was appointed in 1920 professor of clinical surgery at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. In 1923, on the death of D E Mundell, he became professor of surgery; he retired from this chair in 1943. Austin was an excellent teacher, and a most generous and helpful man, especially to the young and handicapped, delighting to do good by stealth and never so happy as when entertaining children. Golf was his recreation. Austin acclimatized himself rapidly to Canadian life and did much to promote professional solidarity. He was a founder-member of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and an active promoter of the work of the Canadian Association of Clinical Surgeons. In 1931-32 he served as president of the Ontario Medical Association. He also took his full share in the activities of the Canadian Medical Association and the Toronto Academy of Medicine. He was a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons at Chicago. In 1944 the Queen's University Alumni Association presented him with their medal for his outstanding services to the university. Austin died at Kingston, Ontario, after two years' illness, on 20 March 1945, aged 65, survived by his sister, Margaret Austin. He had practised at 122 Union Street, Kingston. Publication:- Carcinoma of rectum. *London Hosp Gaz*. March 1911, Clinical Supplement.