Born in Gosforth, Newcastle-on-Tyne on 2 January 1893, a descendant of a long line of ancestors in Weardale, he was educated at a private school in Gosforth. He won a scholarship at the University of Durham Medical College, Newcastle, in 1911. On the outbreak of the 1914-18 war he volunteered as a Surgeon-Probationer RNVR, being temporarily demobilised in December 1915 to complete his medical studies, which he did by qualifying with the Conjoint Diploma in October 1916. He was again mobilised as Surgeon-Lieutenant and spent the rest of the war with the Grand Fleet until demobilised in August 1919. After this he held house appointments in the Royal Victoria Infirmary and in December 1920 was appointed surgical registrar. In July 1931 he became an assistant surgeon at the Royal Victoria Infirmary. He also obtained appointments as honorary surgeon to the War Memorial Hospital, Hexham, to the Fleming Memorial Hospital for Children, Newcastle, and to the Infirmary VD Clinic. In addition he worked as private assistant to Professor Rutherford Morison and, subsequently, to Professor R J Willan. In 1947 he was promoted full surgeon to the Infirmary and continued in this office until his retirement in March 1958. In his later years he was surgeon to the Ministry of Pensions Hospital, Dunston Hill, to Tyne-dale Victoria Jubilee Infirmary, and to the Preston Hospital, North Shields. By nature modest and retiring, he got through a prodigious amount of work in a calm and unruffled way. He was a popular teacher of general surgery with a particular interest in genito-urinary surgery. Throughout his life he maintained his interest in the sea, sailing his own yachts, both large and small, and after retirement made a voyage to South Africa as a ship's surgeon. He married in 1930 Nora Coltman, the doctor daughter of a well-known Newcastle dentist, by whom he had a son and two daughters. He died at his home in Ponteland, Northumberland, on 23 November 1962.