Arthur Austin Belton studied medicine at Sheffield University and graduated MB, ChB in 1949. For a while he worked as a demonstrator in anatomy at the University, passed the fellowship of the college in 1954 and became a fellow of the International College of Surgeons in 1968. He travelled to the West Indies and took up the post of senior surgical registrar at the University College Hospital of the West Indies before moving to Iraq as a surgeon at the Fields Hospital in Kirkuk. Eventually he moved to the James Paton Memorial Hospital in Gander, Newfoundland and was appointed the chief of surgical services. At one time he was president of the Surgical Society of Newfoundland and he was also a member of the advisory board of the Newfoundland Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation. He is believed to have returned to the UK to live in Wolverhampton. He died on 22 November 2021 aged 95.