James William Hinton was born in Reedville, Virginia, in 1894 and attended the University of Virginia where he graduated MD in 1919. He then went to the Postgraduate Hospital in New York for his surgical training and was later appointed to the consultant staff at the hospital, and at the Bellevue Hospital, New York. In 1948 he was appointed Professor of Surgery at the Postgraduate Hospital, in the New York University, and also Director of the Fourth Surgical Division at Bellevue Hospital. From his earliest days as a consultant Hinton showed a great interest in post-graduate surgical training, and encouraged his residents to gain experience in other hospitals in the environs of New York and elsewhere, and ultimately many of them became distinguished surgeons. But the most important outcome of his interest in widespread surgical interrelationships was the formation of the James IV Association of Surgeons, in which he had the collaboration of Professor Sir John Bruce of Edinburgh and Professor Ian Aird of the Postgraduate Medical School in London. It consisted of a select group of surgical leaders on both sides of the Atlantic who would select a number of young surgeons each year to visit selected medical schools and hospitals and report back to the Association. It was in acknowledgement of his initiative in this important activity that he was awarded the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1960.