Brian Harcourt was born on 3 March 1934, the son of John Ellison Harcourt, a scientific instrument manufacturer in Liverpool and Bertha Florence Kneen. His grandfather, Richard Eugene Harcourt FRCS (1858-1921), was an ophthalmic surgeon, also in Liverpool. Harcourt was educated at Quarry Bank High School, Liverpool. His clinical training was at St Bartholomew's Hospital where he was Brackenbury Surgical Scholar in 1958. He was house surgeon to H B Stallard at St Bartholomew's and Moorfields Eye Hospital and later was resident surgical officer at Moorfields. He served as an ophthalmic specialist in the RAF, attaining the rank of Squadron-Leader, and he was appointed consultant ophthalmic surgeon to the United Leeds Hospitals and lecturer in ophthalmology in the University of Leeds, in 1968. He became a member of the Council of the Faculty of Ophthalmologists and secretary of the Section of Ophthalmology at the Royal Society of Medicine. He married Margaret Silk in 1958 and they had three sons and a daughter. He was a keen gardener, fell walker and ornithologist. He was survived by his wife, two sons (one a medical student), and a daughter, also an ophthalmologist, when he died on 3 November 1987.