Born 4 November 1868, the sixth child and third son of Arthur Lister (1830-1908), FRS, merchant and botanist, and his wife, née Tindall. Arthur Lister was a younger brother of Joseph Lister, and William grew up in the centre of a most gifted medico-scientific family, comparable only to the Darwins. Originally Quakers, they joined the Anglican communion but retained the Quaker virtues. William's grandfather, Joseph Jackson Lister (1786-1869), FRS, was a wine-merchant and a microscopist of note; his uncle Joseph, Lord Lister (1827-1912), PRS, achieved the epoch-making introduction of antiseptic methods through his remarkable combination of outstanding gifts as surgeon and biologist; his father, Arthur, was an authority on the mycetozoa; Sir Rickman Godlee, PRCS, and Marcus Beck, FRCS were his first cousins, their mothers being his father's sisters; his elder brother Joseph Jackson Lister the younger (died 1927) became a notable zoologist, Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and FRS 1900; his younger brother Arthur Hugh Lister CMG (died 1916) made his mark as a physician at Aberdeen; and Gulielma Lister, one of his four sisters, a botanist like their father, was in the first group of women elected into Fellowship of the Linnean Society. Of his own sons two became eminent in the medical profession: Arthur Reginald Lister, FRCS, as a surgeon at York, and William Alexander Lister, FRCP, as a physician at Plymouth; and a nephew Arthur Lister, FRCS, followed him as ophthalmic surgeon to the London Hospital. In this galaxy of talent Sir William Lister, who devoted his abilities to ophthalmology, was second in distinction only to his immortal uncle. William Lister was educated at Oliver's Mount, Scarborough, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, taking second-class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos, part 1, 1889 and graduating in medicine 1892. He received his clinical training at University College Hospital, where he was house surgeon to Sir John Tweedy, the ophthalmic surgeon, and took the Conjoint qualification in May 1895 and the Fellowship one month after. He was for some time pathologist and curator of the museum at Moorfields (Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital), and assistant surgeon to the Central London Ophthalmic Hospital. Lister was elected ophthalmic surgeon to the London Hospital in 1903, and in 1904 assistant surgeon to Moorfields, but resigned the latter position a year later as his strength was not enough for the double work. At the end of the war, which he had spent on active service, he resigned the London Hospital surgeoncy in 1918 and was elected consulting ophthalmic surgeon. He was elected in 1919 surgeon to Moorfields, to which he devoted the rest of his working life, becoming consulting surgeon 1929. He was also consulting ophthalmic surgeon to King Edward VII Hospital, Windsor, and ophthalmic surgeon to the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street. Lister was commissioned colonel, AMS, on 10 December 1914 and went to France as consulting ophthalmic surgeon to the British Expeditionary Force. There during four years of war he planned the ophthalmic services of the Army, and his ability and determination carried his plans to success. He devised the allocation of "roving ophthalmic consultants" among the army hospitals, and was also responsible for the distribution of equipment. With the help of J H Sutcliffe, MRCS, at Clifford's Inn he organized the supply and replacement of spectacles for the troops from "spectacle centres" in France. But his most successful achievement was the segregation and treatment of the large corps of Chinese labourers, affected with trachoma, which he carried through with the help of John Francis Cunningham. For his war service Lister was created CMG 1916 and promoted to KCMG 1919. In that year he was appointed surgeon oculist to the Royal Household, a position he held till 1936, and was rewarded with a KCVO in 1934. He was also consulting ophthalmic surgeon to Queen Alexandra's Military Hospital, Millbank, through the war and till 1929. He gave an account in 1918 of his "War experience of gunshot and mustard-gas injuries of the eyes" in a Hunterian lecture at the College, and contributed the account of "Mustard-gas burns of the eye" to the Official Medical History of the War. He had been responsible for coping successfully with this new form of war injury, when it first befell the British Army. At Moorfields from 1919 to 1929 Lister elaborated the postgraduate teaching, emphasizing equally the pathological and clinical aspects of ophthalmology. His minutely careful operative technique and his knowledge and wisdom were also fully employed for the benefit of his patients and students. He was a slow worker, very self-critical, diffident at first and easily tired, but his will and integrity and mastery of his art gave him confidence and imperturbability when actively engaged in clinical or surgical work. He had learnt from John Tweedy, Edward Nettleship, and R. M. Gunn, and his own meticulous and enthusiastic search for knowledge enabled him to pass on with increased value the great tradition of the Hospital's teaching. He was an excellent teacher, but never took much part in professional societies, though a frequent contributor to scientific journals. He was a member of the editorial board of the *British Journal of Ophthalmology* from its beginning in 1917 and took part regularly in its work. Modesty led him to refuse twice the presidency of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom, a position for which his wealth, charm, and prestige admirably fitted him. He was a most generous and hospitable man. At Moorfields he installed four Gullstrand lamps and equipped a small clinical theatre at his own expense. He retired from his hospital work in 1929, when he and his wife were both elected to the committee of management at Moorfields. He maintained his private practice till 1934. Lister worked strenuously and continuously to improve his beautiful technique and was much interested in developing instruments and devices. He invented the Lister frill operation for the removal of infected ruptured eyes; devised an electric model of Morton's ophthalmoscope and improved Basil Lang's perimeter in such a way that his model eclipsed all others and was generally adopted for constant use. Even after retirement he was ready to study the latest operative advances at first-hand. In 1923 he visited America and lectured on detachment of the retina and holes in the vitreous. In Switzerland in December 1929 he visited the clinics of Gavin, Alfred Vogt and Koly, and the next month, January 1930, he performed the first operation in England for detachment of the retina by their new method of ignipuncture, with a view to sealing the hole in the detachment. He went to Utrecht as late as March 1939 to see H J M Weve's work on retinal detachment. His opinion was highly valued by his colleagues, and he had a large private practice at 24 Devonshire Place, W. Lister married in 1894 Grace, daughter of William Cleverly Alexander, of Heathfield Park, Sussex. Lady Lister survived him with four sons, two of whom are mentioned at the beginning of this memoir. He died at his home, The Old House, Bledlow Ridge, High Wycombe, on the Chiltern hills above Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, on 7 July 1944, aged 75, and was cremated at Oxford. He left £1,000 to the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund and £500 to the Ophthalmological Society. Lady Lister endowed a travelling scholarship, "The Sir William Lister award in ophthalmology", at the Royal College of Surgeons in January 1948. Lister made time for many recreations. He was a skilful embroiderer and a keen musician, at one time a member of the London Bach Choir, and a good draughtsman. Photography was his favourite amusment, and he was in the first class as a photographer with the microscope and of architecture and mountains; he had been an active climber and a member of the Alpine Club. He rowed in his College boat (1st Trinity) at Cambridge, and was an accomplished skater. Publications: Case of macular coloboma associated with old choroiditis. *Trans Ophthal Soc UK* 1900, 20, 188. Angioid streaks of the retina. *Ophthal Rev* 1903, 22, 151. Epithelial plaques of the conjunctiva, with W I Hancock. *Ophthal Hosp Rep* 1905, 15, 346. Disturbances of vision from cerebral lesions, with special reference to the cortical representation of the macula, with Gordon Holmes. *Proc Roy Soc Med* 1915-16, 9, ophthalmology section, p 57. Evulsion of the optic nerve, with M L Hine. *Trans Ophthal Soc UK* 1919, 39, 196. Punctate deposits on the retina. *Ibid* 1921, 41, 275. Detachment of the vitreous. *Trans Internat Congr Ophthal*, Philadelphia, 1922, 1, 50. Holes in the retina and their clinical significance. *Brit J Ophthal* 1924, 8, 1. Some concussion changes met with in military practice. *Ibid*, p 305.