Born at Newcastle on Tyne in 1884, he was a scholar of Caius, Cambridge, where he took first-class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos, part I, 1906. At University College Hospital he was Atkinson Morley scholar, won the Liston gold medal, and was obstetric registrar. He also worked at St Thomas's and in Berlin and Vienna. During the war of 1914¬1918 he served in France with the rank of Major RAMC. He settled at Leamington in 1920, becoming surgeon to the Warneford Hospital, and for some years was also on the staff of the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital. He built up a leading practice in South Warwickshire, with an excellent private nursing home at Priors House, Leamington. During the war of 1939-45 he was group officer in the Ministry of Health's Emergency Medical Service for the Coventry, Warwick, and Leamington area. He was the first chairman of the medical advisory committee for South Warwickshire, and from 1947 to 1951 gynaecological and obstetric surgeon to the South Warwickshire hospitals group. Alderson took a prominent part in the life of his district. In Freemasonry he became a Deputy Provincial Grand Master, and he was for many years honorary secretary of the North Warwickshire Hunt. He lived in the village of Offchurch, where he usually read the lessons in the parish church. Alderson married in 1917 Marguerite, daughter of William Pasteur MD, FRCP, who survived him with their son Jeffrey. He died in the hunting-field on 28 October 1961 aged 77. A memorial service was held in Birmingham Cathedral on 22 November.