Francis Theodore Talbot was born in 1872 and educated at Cambridge University and Leeds, qualifying with the Conjoint Diploma in 1898 and graduating MB BCh in 1900. He was house surgeon and house physician at Leeds General Infirmary, and then went to Stockton-on-Tees and became a partner in a general practice as well as honorary surgeon to the Stockton and Thornaby Hospital. Talbot became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1911, and during the first world war he had to run the practice and carry out his hospital duties, single handed. The hospital was overflowing with wounded, and he often had to perform quite serious operations in the patients' homes. He retired from the practice in 1924 and moved to Torquay. He died on 2 October 1969 at the age of 97 at Lustleigh, South Devon.