Born on 27 November 1893 second child and only son of John Hunter Connell, cotton yarn merchant, and Helen Mary Steven his wife, he was educated at Glasgow Academy and University. On the outbreak of war in 1914 he enlisted as a private soldier in the Highland Light Infantry, but returned to the medical school in 1915. He qualified in 1916, was commissioned in the RAMC and served till 1920 in Mesopotamia, India, and Waziristan. During 1917 he was a Captain and surgical specialist with the Derajat Brigade. In 1920 he made his own way home from India, travelling as a ship's surgeon by Australia, Panama, and the United States. Returning to Glasgow, Connell served as house surgeon to Archibald Young at the Royal Infirmary 1920, was demonstrator of anatomy in the University 1921-22, and edited the *Glasgow University Magazine*. From 1922 to 1924 he worked at the London Hospital and the Beckett Hospital, Barnsley. He then joined the Colonial Medical Service, and was appointed a surgical specialist in Tanganyika, serving first at Songea and later at 77 Speke Street, Dar-es-Salaam. He acted as secretary of the Tanganyika branch of the British Medical Association 1928-29, was President-elect 1931-34 and President 1934-35 and 1938-39. During the war he served in Abyssinia 1940-43 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, East African Army Medical Corps, and was mentioned in dispatches. From 1943 to 1945 he served in military hospitals in Kenya, in charge of the surgical division of No 1 General Hospital at Nairobi and of No 3 General Hospital at Nyeri. In 1945-46 he was medical supervisor of displaced persons at Brunswick under the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Authority. Connell married on 25 June 1924 Frances Alberta Read. He retired in 1946, settled at 2 Wellshot Drive, Cambuslang, Glasgow, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons. He died in Glasgow on 31 October 1952 aged 58, survived by his wife, son, and daughter. Publications: Thyroid metastases of bone. *Brit J Surg* 1930, 17, 523. Hernia in Africans. *Brit J Surg* 1930, 18, 16. The operative treatment of the elephantoid scrotum. *Brit J Surg* 1932, 19, 651. *Surgical handbook for hospital assistants in the tropics*. London, Bale 1938.