James Sloan Mutrie Robertson was born on 8 April 1905 and graduated in medicine at Glasgow University in 1928. He took the FRCS England in 1932 and was appointed gate surgeon to Glasgow Royal Infirmary. When it was decided to create new departments of orthopaedic surgery and neurosurgery he chose neurosurgery and went to Canada for a year as a Rockefeller Scholar. He trained with Wilder Penfield as a fellow of the Neurological Institute, Montreal, and when he came back to Glasgow Royal Infirmary he was given a few beds and appointed neurosurgeon. War came and changed the direction of his career. He was retained as a specialist in neurosurgery and appointed to a new EMS hospital at Killearn and the West of Scotland Neurosurgical Unit with the active support of the Regius Professor of Surgery, Sir Charles Illingworth. Sloan Robertson was a brilliant neurologist and his systematic investigation and understanding produced accurate and precise diagnoses in complicated and obscure cases. He was a master craftsman, and his attention to detail and management was responsible for success in many dangerous and technically difficult operations. Killearn became a centre for training neurologists and neurosurgeons. Young doctors came from all parts of the world to train with Sloan Robertson and held him in high regard with a mixture of respect, affection, and veneration. For several years before he retired he planned and organised the Institute of Neurological Sciences at Glasgow. This is his creation, based primarily on the Neurological Institute at Montreal and modified in accord with his own wide experience at Killearn. He was diffident and shy, but keenly interested in other people. He enjoyed constructive recreations, and after he retired to Carrick in Argyllshire became skilled in silver work. He was also secretary to the local community council. He was married and had one son. He died on 25 May 1978, aged 73.