Born at Clifton, Bristol on 5 July 1859, the eldest son and second child of Richard Walter Pigeon, solicitor, and Henrietta Mary Kemball, his wife. He was educated at Clifton College when Dr Percival was headmaster. On 18 April 1877 he was admitted a pensioner at Christ's College, Cambridge, obtained a science scholarship on 13 November 1877, and graduated BA after he had been placed in the first class of Part 1 of the Natural Sciences Tripos. On 1 October 1880 he entered Guy's Hospital, served there as house surgeon and resident obstetric officer, and then went to Manchester as resident surgeon at the Royal Infirmary. He was elected honorary assistant surgeon at the Royal Hull Infirmary on 8 April 1886, became surgeon on 8 February 1900, resigned on 5 July 1919, and was then appointed consulting surgeon. He married Ellen Elizabeth Gundley on 9 March 1886. She survived him with three daughters, of whom one, Evelyn Pigeon, MB BCh Glasgow, was (1935) in charge of the CMS Hospital at Nablus, Palestine. His only son, Captain John Walter Pigeon, IMS, MB Cambridge 1919, was killed in action in Mesopotamia on 3 September 1920 (*Brit med J* 1920, 2, 496). Henry Walter Pigeon died at Ebor Lodge, Canford Cliffs, Parkstone, Bournemouth on 6 December 1935; Mrs Pigeon died there on 4 March 1942. He was a man of many interests: president of the East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire branch of the British Medical Association, churchwarden of Holy Trinity Church, Hull, and president of the Hull Literary and Philosophical Society. Publications: Resection of carcinomatous bowel per rectum. *Brit med J* 1891, 1, 1332. Aseptic thrombosis of the cavernous sinuses. *Ibid* 1908, 2, 1747.