Born on 19 August 1860 the second son of William Roxburgh MD Edinburgh, FRCP London, who practised at Bedford, and his wife Annie Elizabeth Boswell, he was educated at Bedford School and Exeter College, Oxford, where he took fourth-class honours in the final school of physiology in 1882. He qualified from the London Hospital in 1887, and graduated in medicine at Oxford in 1891. He was for some years chief clinical assistant at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields. At the London Hospital he was successively surgical registrar, surgical tutor, lecturer on ophthalmic surgery, and ophthalmic surgeon, becoming consulting ophthalmic surgeon on retirement. He practised at 7 Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square, and lived later at Oaksleigh, Locks Heath, near Southampton, where he enjoyed gardening. Roxburgh married in 1916 Edith Annie, daughter of George Fletcher MD of Highgate, who survived him but without children. He died at his home on 17 March 1953 aged 92.