Born in London 15 July 1874, the third son of Edward Henry Physick Eason, auctioneer and surveyor, of Bishopsgate, and his wife Mary Ann Moore. He nearly died of double pneumonia at the age of eleven, and was educated at a private school in Dulwich, at University College, London, and at Guy's Hospital, and retained a close connexion with the hospital and with London University to the end of his busy life. He qualified in 1898 and proceeded both to the MD and the MS. He was house physician at Guy's to Sir James Goodhart, MD, FRCP, but was more markedly influenced by Sir Cooper Perry, MD, FRCP towards pursuing his bent for administration. By Perry's advice he specialized in ophthalmology, to leave himself time for administrative work, which a less restricted medical field would not. He was appointed assistant ophthalmic surgeon at Guy's in 1905, and ultimately became senior ophthalmic surgeon. During the war of 1914-18 Eason was a consulting ophthalmic surgeon to the British Army in Egypt and the Near East, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, RAMC. He was created CMG in 1917 and CB in 1919 for his services. He formed a personal friendship with General (afterwards Field-Marshal Lord) Allenby, who struck him as the greatest man he met in his long life of many distinguished contacts. While practising his specialty with distinction, Eason's great contribution to medicine lay in the full deployment of his rare administrative talent. In honour of this work he was elected a Fellow of the College in 1936, as a member of twenty years' standing. At Guy's he was Warden of the College (1902) and Dean of the medical and dental school 1903-12, and in 1920 he succeeded Perry, who had held the post for 28 years, as Superintendent of the Hospital. Eason thoroughly enjoyed the appointment, which he sustained with dignified ability for nearly 20 years. In the University of London he was an active member of the Faculty of Medicine, represented the Faculty on the Senate from 1911, and the Senate on the Court 1931-37. He was elected Vice-Chancellor in 1935, and after the tragic death of Edwin Deller, who was accidentally killed while inspecting the building of the new university house in 1937, Eason assumed the office of Principal, making with skill the difficult step from the chief administrative to the chief executive office of the university. As a leading member of the Board of Education's Departmental Committee on the University of London 1924-26, he had done much to shape the policy which he administered. Eason represented the University on the General Medical Council from 1924 and, after serving as a trustee of the English branch of the Council and joint treasurer with Sir George Newman, he was elected president from 1 December 1939, in succession to Sir Norman Walker, president 1931-39. Sir Robert Bolam had been chairman of business since 1932, but died some months before Walker's retirement, leaving the succession open to the highly eligible Eason. Eason was a proved committee man and an experienced administrator with a sound knowledge of the law. He had been elected as Honorary Master of the Bench of the Inner Temple in 1938. He had also personal acquaintance with clinical practice. After assuming the presidential office Eason gave up all part in the work of the British Medical Association, to avoid any colour of professional partiality. He had served on the Association's ophthalmic committee, which helped to sponsor the National Eye Service. Eason was intensely proud of the dignity and weight of his position, and valued the contacts which it brought him on the intellectual rather than the social or administrative level with the leaders of medicine throughout the British Isles. In his judicial capacity his bearing towards offenders was stern, but he avoided all moral exhortation. At the preliminary private deliberations of the Council his voice was given for leniency. Eason's contribution to the Council's educational work was nearer his heart than his disciplinary duties. He held that the Council must privately establish, and only then publish, standards for medical training, which the various teaching and qualifying bodies would be expected to attain, while they ought to be allowed complete freedom in their methods, so long as they reached the Council's required standard. To this end he was largely responsible for the Council's *Rules for Diplomas in Public Health* 1945. He toured the medical schools of North America in 1946 with a party of his fellow councillors, under grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, after which the Council issued their *Recommendations as to the medical curriculum* 1947. He next oversaw the drafting of a Medical Bill, intended to reform the constitution and finance of the Council itself. Eason was a member of the Ministry of Health's Postgraduate medical education committee 1925-30, which led to the establishment of the (British) Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith Hospital, and he became a governor of the school. He was co-opted a member of the Hospitals and Medical services committee of the London County Council, was a trustee of the Beit Memorial Fellowships for medical research, and represented the Ministry of Health on the General Nursing Council. He was a member of the general council of King Edward's Hospital Fund for London, and served *ex officio* on the Central Health Services Council of the National Health Service 1948-49. He was knighted in 1943. In earlier years Eason had been an active member of the Ophthalmological Society, and contributed to its *Transactions* and to *Guy's Hospital Reports*. He wrote the ophthalmic articles for French's *Index of differential diagnosis*. Eason was tall, thin, and aquiline, with long sensitive fingers. His manner in private was cool and his wit mordant, but under this outward austerity lay a sympathetic spirit. If he had a fault it was impatient forthrightness rather than legal tortuosity. He was punctual and concise in all his affairs. His intellectual devotion to justice was tempered, but never deflected, by compassion for human frailty. His mind was fertile to initiate and decisive in execution. He was a forward-looking reformer, in spite of his historical sense of man's inability to progress. Eason married twice: (1) in 1908 the Honourable Ierne Bingham, eldest daughter of the fifth Lord Clanmorris, who died in 1917, leaving one daughter; (2) in 1920 Margaret, daughter of R G Wallace of Quidenham, Attleborough, Norfolk, who survived him with two daughters. Sir Herbert Eason died on 2 November 1949, aged 75, at Nuffield House, Guy's Hospital. A memorial service was held in the hospital chapel on 11 November. After the destruction by enemy action in 1941 of the superintendent's beautiful eighteenth-century house at Guy's Hospital, Eason lived at Newbridge Mill, Coleman's Hatch, Sussex. Publications:- Military ophthalmia in Egypt: a comparison between the incidence of ophthalmia among Napoleon's troops in Egypt, 1798-1801, and in the Egypt Expeditionary Force, 1915-18. *Trans Ophthal Soc UK.* 1918, 38, 30-45. Ophthalmic practice in the Mediterranean and Egyptian Expeditionary Forces, 1915-18. *Guy's Hosp Rep*. 1922, 70, 63-114.