Born 21 December 1865 at Bathgate, West Lothian, eldest of the two sons and two daughters of Andrew Martin Fairbairn (1838-1912, for whom see *DNB*), then minister of the Bathgate Evangelical Union Congregational Church, and Jane, his wife, daughter of John Shields, of Byres, Bathgate. He was educated at Bradford, where his father was principal of Airedale Theological College from 1877 to 1886, and at Oxford, where his father was the first principal of Mansfield College from 1886. He won an open science demyship at Magdalen, and was placed in the first class in the final school of natural science 1891. He studied medicine at St Thomas's Hospital, and took the Conjoint qualification in 1895 and the Oxford BM in 1897. At the Hospital he served as house physician and as obstetric house physician under Charles James Cullingworth (1841-1908), was obstetric tutor and registrar 1898, and in 1902 was elected assistant obstetric physician, becoming in due course obstetric physician and ultimately consulting obstetric physician; he was also lecturer in midwifery and diseases of women at the hospital's medical school. He had taken the FRCS in 1900, but was elected FRCP in 1909 and thereafter was closely connected with the College of Physicians, serving as an examiner 1910-14 and a Councillor 1926-28, and gave their Bradshaw lecture in 1934 on the medical and psychological aspects of gynaecology. He also examined for Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds, and Glasgow universities and for the Society of Apothecaries. It was at his instigation that the Society founded its Mastership of Midwifery, the first higher diploma in the subject to be granted in Great Britain; Fairbairn was himself elected to this degree *honoris causa* in 1929. He was also physician to the General Lying-in Hospital, York Road, Camberwell, and here he established the first post-certificate school for midwives. On the Central Midwives Board he preceded Sir Comyns Berkeley, FRCS, as chairman, and from 1930 was Inspector of Midwifery under the General Medical Council. In earlier years Fairbairn was pathologist at the Chelsea Hospital for Women, where he had among his colleagues Sir Ewen Maclean, FRCP, T W Eden, FRCP, Sir Comyns Berkeley, and Victor Bonney, FRCS, all of whom left their mark on the advance of midwifery and gynaecology in London, and were among his collaborators in the "Ten Teachers" textbooks which achieved a merited popularity. During the war of 1914-18 Fairbairn was commissioned captain, RAMC(T), on 16 August 1915 on the staff of the 5th London General Hospital; he was also attached to the clinical teaching staff of the RAM College. Fairbairn took an active part in professional societies, being a well-read man and a keen debater. He was an Honorary Fellow of the Obstetrical Society of Edinburgh. In the British Medical Association he was secretary of the section of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Oxford meeting 1904, and president of the section at the Bradford meeting 1924 and the Melbourne meeting 1935, when he was admitted an Honorary MD of the University. Fairbairn played an influential part in the foundation of the British (now Royal) College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, was a foundation Fellow 1929, and succeeded the first president, Sir William Blair Bell, in the chair. During his presidency the original bye-laws were revised, and his combination of common sense and vision put the young College on a sound constitutional base. The first diplomate examination was held under his presidency, and he secured for the College a silver mace and the library of rare gynaecological books collected by Roy Dobbin, FRCP, formerly professor of midwifery at Cairo. For many years he edited the *Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Empire*. Fairbairn made a great name in his days of active hospital work and private practice at 45 Queen Anne Street, W, and later as an administrator, but his chief influence was educational. He was not only a first-class teacher but he took a philosophic view of the ends of education and, as has been stated above, was instrumental in starting several new schools and qualifications. He was one of the first within the profession to appreciate the great part which medicine must play in realizing the aspirations of sociologists and economists; social medicine in its maternity and child-welfare aspects grew from Fairbairn's teaching. He humorously suggested that the baby is not to be looked on as a mere by-product of pregnancy and labour, but that obstetricians and paediatricians must work as a team; he was an original member of the Preposterous Club, which sought to bring them together. The antenatal and postnatal clinics at St Thomas's, which he established, were the first in London, second only to those started by J J Buchan at Edinburgh, and were most successful. He arranged for every student at St Thomas's to serve six months as a clerk in the obstetric department. Fairbairn married in 1913 Elma, second daughter of J P Stuart, of Elgin, who survived him; there were no children. In 1927 he first experienced duodenal disturbance, and retired in 1936 to his parents' old house, Blucairn, Lossiemouth, where he busied himself with growing alpine plants, but kept in touch with his professional colleagues London, who had given him a farewell dinner in March 1936 at which Sir Ewen Maclean made the chief speech. He died at Lossiemouth on 22 January 1944, aged 78. Mrs Fairbairn died there on 28 January 1949 after a long illness. A portrait of Fairbairn by Souter was presented to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists by Lord Riddell. Publications:- The pathology of fibroma of the ovary. *J Obstet Gynaec Brit Emp*. 1902, 2, 128. Necrobiosis in fibromyomata of the uterus. *Ibid*. 1903, 4, 119. Full-term ectopic pregnancy. *Ibid*. 1906, 10, 599. A case of tubal abortion. *Ibid*. 1906, 10, 609. Primary chorionepithelioma of the ovary. *Ibid*. 1909, 16, 1. Pelvic cysts due to spinal meningocele. *Ibid*. 1911, 20, 1. *A textbook for midwives*. London, 1914; 5th edition, 1930. *The practitioner's encyclopaedia of midwifery and the diseases of women*. London, 1921. *Obstetrics*. London, 1926. *Gynaecology with obstetrics*. London, 1928. *The medical and psychological aspects of gynaecology*. (Bradshaw lecture, RCP) London, 1934. Changes in thought in half a century of obstetrics. *Trans Edinb Obstet Soc*. 1935, p 63. Joint editor of the *Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Empire*, and of the "Ten teachers" textbooks: *Midwifery*, 1917, and *Diseases of women*, 1921.