Born on 22 May 1881 son of the Rev James Roy, Rector of Stockton Forest, York, he was educated at St Peter's School, York and Sydney Sussex, Cambridge, where he was a scholar, was placed in the first class of both parts of the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1908 and was captain of the College Rugby XV in 1901-02. Proceeding to St George's Hospital, where he was awarded an entrance scholarship and the Brodie Prize, he held house appointments after qualification as house surgeon, house physician and obstetric assistant. This was followed by an appointment as obstetric registrar and tutor, after which he was elected to the consultant staff of St George's as casualty obstetric surgeon and to the Samaritan Hospital for Women as consulting surgeon. Additional appointments which he held were those of physician and lecturer at the General Lying-in Hospital, York Road SE and obstetrical and gynaecological consultant to LCC Hospitals. During the first world war he served as a surgeon RNVR from 1914 to 1917 in the hospital ships Asturias and Plassey attached to the Grand Fleet. In 1917-18 he was an acting Major in the RAMC attached to Northampton War Hospital. He became senior examiner in obstetrics and gynaecology to the Board of Advanced Studies of London University and at Cambridge, and for the Conjoint Board, the Society of Apothecaries, and the Midwives Board. An honorary secretary and vice-president of the Section of Obstetrics of the Royal Society of Medicine, he was vice-president of the Section of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Medical Association at the annual meeting in Eastbourne in 1931. He contributed numerous articles on the teaching of obstetrics and the organisation of obstetric teaching. Practising first in Upper Brook Street and then in Chandos Street, he retired to Newbury in 1938. He died in York on 9 December 1960 aged 79 survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter.