He was born on 26 September 1899 in the village of
Strichen in northern Scotland, into a farming background. He attended school locally then won a place studying medicine at the
University of Aberdeen graduating with an
MB ChB in 1922. He won the Alexander Anderson Travelling Scholarship, allowing him further study at the Pathology Department of the
University of Glasgow. Here he worked with
Robert Muir and
Carl Browning who each influenced him in his choice of career as a bacteriologist. Initially working in the Hospital For Sick Children in
Glasgow he was given a Fellowship in cancer research. In 1928 he was appointed a lecturer in bacteriology at the
University of Glasgow while also taking the role of bacteriologist for
Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Here he made important observations and advances in the understanding of
streptococcal infections in burn victims. In 1936 he was appointed Director of the LCC Group Laboratory at the North West Fever Hospital in London. Despite a decade of ill-health, he built up the reputation of the laboratory in the field of bacteriological research. In 1945 he became the first Director of the Central Public Health Laboratory in
Colindale in north London, establishing it as a centre for medical microbiology. In 1949 he became Professor of Bacteriology at the
University of London linked to St Mary's Hospital. In 1955 he became Director of the Wright-Fleming Institute, formerly the Sir Almoth Wright Inoculation Department. In 1958 he returned to
Scotland to take up a chair in Bacteriology at the
University of Edinburgh. He was made a Fellow of the
Royal College of Physicians (London) in 1946. He was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1959. His proposers were
George Lightbody Montgomery,
David Whitteridge,
Guy Frederic Marrian, and
James Pickering Kendall. In 1966 he was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). The
University of Aberdeen awarded him an honorary doctor of letters (LLD) in 1968. He retired in 1966 and took on the role of Professor of Social and Preventative Medicine at the
University of the West Indies which linked to the Ministry of Health in
Jamaica. During this period he also represented the UK at the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Pakistan-SEATO
Cholera Research Laboratory in
Dacca, Pakistan. He retired fully in 1968. He died on 16 August 1974. ==Family==