Born at Eramosa, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada. His school time was beset with monetary difficulties by the deaths of his parents when he was 13, and he had to teach to obtain means for his further education, and to aid two half-brothers. He was thus enabled to matriculate at the age of 22, and he graduated MB in 1886 at the University of Toronto, being the Gold Medallist and the Starr Gold Medallist of his year. At the Toronto General Hospital he was House Surgeon. He continued to study after graduation, and coming to England passed the MRCS and FRCS examinations, the one directly after the other. He was shortly afterwards appointed to the Surgical Staff of the Toronto Hospital, became Surgeon, and Professor of Surgery and of Clinical Surgery in the University of Toronto, as well as Surgeon to the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children. Through ability, knowledge, and mechanical skill, to which he added originality and what has been termed surgical instinct, he was an excellent teacher; his demonstrations were forcible and clear-cut, and were marked by a wealth and aptitude of illustration. He distinguished himself as a surgeon: by leading the ureters into the rectum in cases of exstrophy of the bladder, and after excision of the bladder; by his method of proctoplasty and suspension for the relief of procidentia recti; and by his coat-sleeve amputation of the appendix. He facilitated the making of plaster casts by previously spraying the part with paraffin. He practised at 102 College Street, Toronto. He was a devotee of sport, and especially of horsemanship, kept fine horses, and rode like a cavalryman. For some years he was an officer in the Governor-General's Bodyguard, and raised the Toronto Light Horse of which he was Lieutenant-Colonel, but the corps was disbanded when he had to retire owing to ill health. He had formed it to profit by the lessons of the Boer War. He was a leading member of the Toronto Hunt, and a bold cross-country rider. He had perhaps overtaxed himself, but he operated on the day before he died of angina pectoris on March 13th, 1907, at the age of 48. He married the daughter of Chief Justice Sir William Meredith, Chancellor of the University of Toronto, and she survived him with two young children. The funeral was military, and was attended by the Medical Faculty of the University and by professional colleagues.