He was born in
Blairgowrie in 1881 the son of Jessie Meldrum (died 1903) and her husband,
Henry Dryerre (born Henry Dryer) a journalist and poet (styling himself Henry Dryerre the Third). He attended school in Blairgowrie then Stirling High School. He originally trained and operated as a pharmacist and only in later life took up study in anatomy, branching from here to animal anatomy. He began lecturing at the
University of Edinburgh in 1919. He concurrently began lecturing in animal physiology at the
Dick Veterinary College nearby. He received a PhD from the university in 1923. From 1930 he continued at the Vet College but exchanged his university lecturing for a role as a biochemist at the Animal Disease Research Association. In 1935 he ceased the latter role to concentrate on a new role as professor of physiology at the
Dick Veterinary College, where he continued until retiral in 1946. He was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1925. His proposers were
Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer,
Anderson Gray McKendrick,
Lancelot Hogben and
Arthur Robertson Cushny. He lived at Kenmore, Broomieknowe in
Lasswade just south of Edinburgh. He died in
Edinburgh on 5 February 1959. ==Family==