Morton, Harry Stafford

Harry Stafford Morton was born in Port Greville, NS, on 18 August 1905, the son of Charles Stewart (1876-1955) and Maie Howard (Stafford) Morton (1879-1931). He studied at St. Andrew's College in Toronto, Ontario, from 1918 to 1921 and Dalhousie University (BA, 1925; MSc, 1927). He studied medicine at the University of London. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1935 and was added to the Medical Register of the College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 1937. In 1938 he joined the Royal Canadian Navy, serving as a surgeon commander with the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve until the end of the Second World War. He retired as a surgeon captain in 1945. Thereafter, he taught at McGill University Medical School and served as Chairman of the Surgical Fellow Training Program from 1946 to 1964. He was a honourary attending surgeon at the Royal Victoria Hospital from 1937 to 1970. From 1960 to 1969, he was the chief surgeon at Queen Mary’s Veterans Hospital in Montreal. Morton founded the Quebec Tumour Registry and was Chairman of the Cancer Committee of the Quebec Medical Society. He was made a patron of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1999 and served as the Chairman and Chief Examiner of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.