Born on 9 July 1869 at Ballycogley Castle, Co Wexford, the second son of Richard Cherry Sikes, of Cork, and Susannah Lecky Jacob, his wife; he was educated privately. He received his medical training at St Thomas's Hospital, where he won an entrance scholarship and the Tite and Peacock scholarships.

Victor Bonney was one of the great masters of gynaecological surgery. He looked on himself as a surgeon who had cultivated one specialty, and could not agree that gynaecologists should be considered a third estate in the medical profession. He was not only a brilliant technical operator but a man of