Born at Thornville, Burley Road, Leeds on 15 February 1874, eldest son of Joseph Dobson, MD and Mary Faulkner, his wife. He was educated at Sedburgh School and at the Leeds Medical School, where he acted as demonstrator of anatomy. He was house surgeon at the Leeds General Infirmary, and acted for a time as an assistant to Sir Arthur Mayo-Robson, of whom he wrote a eulogy in the *University of Leeds Medical Society Magazine* 1934, volume 4, a few days before his death. He was elected an assistant surgeon to the Leeds General Infirmary in 1903, becoming surgeon in 1913 and consulting surgeon on his retirement in 1923. At the University of Leeds he succeeded Lord Moynihan as professor of surgery, and was given the title of emeritus professor in 193. At the beginning of the war he was appointed administrator of the 2nd Northern General Hospital in Beckett's Park, Leeds; he served in this position for eighteen months, when his health broke down. He recovered sufficiently to go to France, taking charge of the surgical division of the General Hospital at St Omer. He returned to civil work in 1919, and died after a prolonged cardiac illness on 19 February 1934. He married on 24 February 1903 Minnie S Millington who survived him. Their only child, a daughter, died at school in 1917, aged 17. Dobson, under the influence of Mayo-Robson, interested himself at first in the surgery of the abdomen. He was Arris and Gale lecturer at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1907 and again in 1920-21, taking as his subjects on the first occasion "The lymphatic system of certain portions of the alimentary canal", and on the second "The function of the kidneys in enlargement of the prostate gland". In his later years he became leading exponent of genito-urinary surgery, and it was his ambition, never fulfilled, to create a special genito-urinary department in connexion with the Leeds General Infirmary. As a surgeon Dobson was cool, resourceful, reliable, and brilliant, as a teacher he was inspiring, and by his numerous visits to foreign clinics he was always abreast of surgical work done in other countries. As a man he was sympathetic and absolutely straight-forward in all his dealings. He was a keen fisherman, a good sportsman, and held a high position in the craft of masonry, being Master of the Zetland Lodge, No 1311 in 1929-30. Publications:- Lymphatics of the colon, with J K Jamieson. *Proc Roy Soc Med*. 1908-9, 2, Surgery 174. Function of the kidneys in enlargement of the prostate gland, Arris and Gale lecture, RCS. *Brit med J*. 1921, 1, 289. Lymphatics of the tongue, with J K Jamieson. *Brit J Surg*. 1920-21, 8, 80. The lymphatic system, in Choyce's *System of Surgery*, 3rd edition, 1932, 1, 1-46. *Diseases of the gall bladder*, by A W Mayo-Robson assisted by J F Dobson, 3rd edition, 1904.