Born in New Zealand on 25 March 1881, the sixth child and second son of James Fulton Neil, chemist, and his wife Annie Hardie. He graduated in science at Otago University, Dunedin in 1902 and qualified there in 1906. After beginning to practise there, he came to England and took the Conjoint qualification at the end of 1907 and the Fellowship in 1909. Neil served as house surgeon at the Nottingham General Infirmary and settled in practice there. He was in France as a surgical specialist, with the rank of captain, RAMC, gazetted 4 November 1915, in the early years of the war, but returned to Nottingham in 1917. He was in due course elected surgeon to the General Infirmary and became chairman of its medical staff committee. He was also surgeon to Ilkeston, Heanor, and Skegness Hospitals. Neil had a large private practice; his chief interests were in abdominal surgery and the teaching of his house surgeons; he paid much attention to the buildings and administration of his hospitals. Neil served as president of the Nottingham Medical Society, and of the Travelling Surgical Club; he formed many friendships with continental surgeons, in particular with Hans Finsterer of Vienna. He was chairman of the Nottingham division of the British Medical Association. Neil married in 1915 Ena Kerr Smith, who had been a sister at the General Infirmary; she survived him with three children. A daughter and a son, Captain James Fulton Neil, RAMC, became doctors. He died on 21 January 1946, aged 64. Neil was a man of calm energy, devoted to his work, cheerful, kind, and popular. Publication: Supraclavicular anaesthetization of the brachial plexus, with F Crooks. *Brit med J* 1913, 1, 388.