Educated at the Universities of Wales and Glasgow and at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, he qualified just as war broke out in 1914. He joined the RAMC and won the Military Cross and bar on active service. He rose to the rank of Major and served as a surgical specialist at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley. After the war he made postgraduate studies at St Bartholomew's and St Thomas's Hospitals, and was a resident officer at the Bolingbroke Hospital, surgical registrar at the Royal Free Hospital, and clinical assistant at St Peter's Hospital for Stone. Pinkerton was for several years consulting surgeon to the Anglo Iranian Oil Company at Abadan in Persia, and later practised at Auckland, New Zealand. He died suddenly at sea on his way home from New Zealand on 9 October 1960, survived by his wife, also a doctor, who practised at Bath. Publication: Percaine spinal anaesthesia, with K P Mackenzie. *J Roy Army med Corps* 1933, 61, 31-36. Tropical ulcer as seen in South Iran, and its treatment with penicillin. *J trop Med Hyg* 1947, 50, 243.