Herbert Frank McNickle was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, on 23 August 1907. His father, William McNickle, was the local postmaster. He attended Auckland Grammar School from 1920 to 1924 and the University of Otago Medical School, where he won a gold medal in anatomy, from 1925 to 1930. He became surgeon to the Wellington Hospital, Wellington, New Zealand, in 1933 and remained there until his retirement in 1946. He wrote two papers on post-operative coronary thrombosis and its prevention and a paper on the drainage of hydrocephalus. He married Kathleen Gordon Bews in July 1933 in London and they had two sons, John Gordon, a business man, and William Gordon who is surgeon-superintendent to the Dargaville Hospital, Northland, New Zealand, and an FRACS. His interests were tennis and gardening. He died on 16 January 1981.