Born on 8 June 1882, the son of a solicitor, he was educated at Bradfield College and Guy's Hospital Medical School, which he entered in 1900, and graduated in 1906 with honours. After holding the usual house appointments he was surgical registrar at Guy's in 1908, and then decided to specialise in otolaryngology. When war broke out in 1914 Layton, who was an enthusiastic member of the Officers Training Corps of London University, found himself mobilised, and in command of a field ambulance. He was twice mentioned in dispatches and awarded the DSO in 1918. On returning to Guy's soon after the war as throat and ear surgeon, Layton was also appointed consultant otologist to the London County Council. He held this appointment until 1944, and in addition he served on the London Insurance Committee, of which he was the first medical chairman. He was a Hunterian professor at the College in 1919; when a group of rhinologists bought from Vienna for the College Museum the Onodi collection of anatomical specimens illustrating the nasal sinuses, Layton was asked to arrange and describe them; his illustrated *Catalogue* was published in 1934, and he was awarded the John Hunter Medal and Trien¬nial Prize. He gave the Erasmus Wilson lecture in 1935. As a young man he had been inspired by Markus Hajek at Vienna, and learned from him the importance of conservative treatment in disease of the nasal sinuses; Layton wrote several papers on the conservation of lymphoid tissue. He was President of the section of Laryngology in the Royal Society of Medicine 1939-41, and Master of the Society of Apothecaries 1940-41, of which his grandfather Bramley Taylor had been Master in 1912. Towards the end of the second world war Layton became a district director for UNNRA in Sicily, and in 1945 was medical superintendent of their hospital at Belsen, Germany on the relief of the notorious murder camp there. Layton was a blunt, honest, friendly man, unambitious but self-confident with no fear of holding unfashionable opinions; for instance he advocated the use of Wilde's incision for mastoid operations, and opposed operative treatment of the tonsils and adenoids, recommending breathing exercises instead. He had been a prominent member of Guy's Rugby XV and kept up his interest in the game; he loved the sea, and after retiring in 1947 served for some time as a ship's surgeon in RMS *Jamaica Producer*; in old age he still enjoyed long country walks. He was an omnivorous reader and a fluent writer; he wrote an essay on Dickens's medical men and a life of his revered master, Sir William Arbuthnot Lane. He gave most of his books to Bradfield College. "Tubby" Layton, as he was universally known, was devoted to the College and its interests, particularly the Museum and Library, and a helpful friend to its officials; he was a popular member of the Athenaeum. He practised at 55 Wimpole Street, and lived in later life at Lingfield. He married in 1909 Edney Eleanor Sampson, who survived him with a son and daughter. He died on 17 January 1964, aged 81. Publications: *Catalogue of the Onodi Collection*. RCS England 1934. *An industry of health*. London, Heinemann 1944. Sore throats and tonsillitis. *Practitioner* 1946, 157, 349. *Sir William Arbuthnot Lane*, Edinburgh, Livingstone 1956.