Born at Norwich in 1923 where his father Victor Farrar Soothill MD was Medical Officer of Health. He was educated at the Leys School and Christ's College, Cambridge taking second-class honours in each part of the Natural Sciences Tripos (1944-45), and at Guy's Hospital where he was house surgeon to Sir Russell Brock and house physician. During national service in the RAMC he was posted to a chest unit in Scotland. He returned to Guy's for a second period as house surgeon in 1952, became resident medical officer at Nuffield House, Guy's 1953, took the Fellowship in 1954, and became surgical house officer at St John's Hospital, Lewisham 1955, and surgical registrar at West Middlesex Hospital 1956. His father died that year (*Brit med J* 1956, 2, 772), and after a period as surgical registrar at Guy's he returned to Norwich in 1958 as senior surgical registrar at the United Norwich Hospital. In 1961 he sailed for Australia to take up appointment as lecturer and consultant at the Prince Henry Hospital, Sydney. On landing at Victoria Dock, Melbourne he was hit by a passing car and killed at once on 29 September 1961. His wife and three young children were to have followed him to Sydney in the New Year. Soothill was a quiet, modest man, interested in music and a member of the Bach Choir. His younger brother John F Soothill was lecturer in the department of experimental pathology at Birmingham. Publications: Obturator hernia. *Guy's Hosp Repts* 1954, 103, 43-48. Closed traumatic rupture of cervical trachea. *Thorax* 1960, 15, 89-92.