Roderick Paton was born on 14 September 1908 in Streatham where his father was a general practitioner, and was educated at Streatham College, Dulwich College and St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, and qualified in 1931. Nine years later, after various hospital appointments, he obtained his Fellowship and in 1942 was appointed ophthalmic surgeon to the Western Ophthalmic Hospital and in 1946 obtained the post of consultant ophthalmic surgeon to Chelmsford Hospital. In 1942 he joined the Army and served with the First Army in Algeria and Tunisia and later with the Eighth Army in Italy, being mentioned in dispatches in November 1945. After leaving the army he returned to his civilian duties at the Western Ophthalmic and Chelmsford Hospitals, which posts he filled with distinction until ill health forced his retirement in 1968. As an ophthalmologist he was a most competent all-rounder, with a special interest in histo-pathology. Paton had a rare gift of universal friendship and it was doubtful if any of his patients or colleagues had anything but the most cordial relations with him. He was a man of wide interests, being keen on natural history with a strong bias towards ornithology, botany, and entomology. He took a great interest in astronomy and was a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He was a keen angler and had a life-long interest also in history, archaeology, and folklore. In 1936 he married Norah Helen Hammond whom he met when she was a nurse and he a house surgeon, and their married life was ideally happy. Paton died after a long illness at the age of 60 on 13 July 1969 and was survived by his wife and two daughters.