Born at Leeds in 1872, the youngest of the twelve children of H B Legg. He was educated at the Leeds Modern School for Boys, from which he gained a scholarship at the Yorkshire College, now the University of Leeds. He received his medical education at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, which he entered in 1889 and where he served as house surgeon to John Langton. He then acted as senior medical officer at the Royal Free Hospital and became surgeon there. At King's College Hospital he was successively senior registrar, 1898, surgical tutor, assistant surgeon, surgeon and lecturer on surgery. He was also consulting surgeon to the Italian Hospital, the Drury Lane Dispensary, the Farnham Cottage Hospital, and the Frimley Cottage Hospital. During the first world war he held the rank of temporary colonel, AMS, and acted as consulting surgeon to the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force 1915-17, and for his services was decorated CMG. Elected a member of the Court of Examiners at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1923, he was fulfilling his duties as an examiner to within twelve hours of his death. During 1921-3 he was associate examiner in surgery at the University of London and an examiner in surgery at the University of Cambridge. He died, unmarried, of angina pectoris on 8 October 1930 and was buried at Scarborough. During the latter years of his life he had been much occupied in the reconstruction of King's College Hospital which largely owing to his work was being brought to a successful issue. Legg was a good and thorough teacher; he was interested in music, cricket, and football. Small and neat in person, of a bright complexion and soft voiced, he was of a cheerful disposition and made friends easily. At the Royal Free Hospital he shared Sir James Berry's valuable work in the improvement of the surgical treatment of hare lip and cleft palate; he was also associated with Berry in pioneer surgery of the thyroid. Legg's account of his thyroid work appeared in his own revision of the Manual of surgical treatment written by his seniors at King's College Hospital. An annual lecture was endowed in his memory at King's. Legg bequeathed £1,000 to the Royal College of Surgeons. Publications: *Hare lip and cleft palate*, with Sir James Berry. London, 1912. Joint editor with Arthur Edmunds of Cheyne and Burghard *Manual of surgical treatment*, new edition, 5 vols, London, 1912-13.