The fifth son and sixth child of George Parkin of Gateshead, jeweller, and Jane Owens, his wife, he was born in Wreckenton, Co Durham on 13 May 1879. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and at the Durham University College of Medicine. He graduated with first-class hono

Charles Ernest Lakin was born in 1878, the son of a general practitioner who became the Mayor of Leicester. He was educated at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School where he was a First Entrance Scholar, and won Broderip and Freeman Scholarships, and qualified in 1901 with the Conjoint Diploma, and