John Alexander Sinton Brigadier John Alexander Sinton , VC , OBE , FRS , DL ( 2 December 1884 – 25 March 1956 ) was a British medical doctor , malariologist and soldier , being a recipient of the Victoria Cross , the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces . Early life . Sinton was born in Victoria , British Columbia , the third of the seven children of Walter Lyon Sinton ( 1860 – 1930 ) and his wife , Isabella Mary , née Pringle ( 1860 – 1924 ) , a family of Quaker linen manufacturers from north of Ireland . On his mother ' s side he was a cousin of James Pringle KC MP , and a nephew of Thomas Sinton and cousin of Ernest Walton on his father ' s . In 1890 they returned to Ulster where he was educated and lived for the rest of his life . He studied at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and read medicine at the Queen ' s University , Belfast , where he graduated in 1908 as first in his year . He went on to attain degrees from the University of Cambridge ( 1910 ) and the University of Liverpool ( 1911 ) . He joined the Indian Medical Service in 1911 , coming first in the entrance examinations , but before being posted to India was seconded as the Queen ' s University research scholar to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine where his contact with Sir Ronald Ross may have influenced his later career as a malariologist . Military career . He was 31 years old and a captain in the Indian Medical Service ( IMS ) , Indian Army , during the First World War . On 21 January 1916 at the Orah Ruins , Mesopotamia , Captain Sinton attended to the wounded under very heavy fire and the citation to his VC reads " " For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty . Although shot through both arms and through the side , he refused to go to hospital , and remained as long as daylight lasted , attending to his duties under very heavy fire . In three previous actions Captain Sinton displayed the utmost bravery . " " He later achieved the rank of Brigadier ( 1943 ) , was awarded the Russian Order of St George and Mentioned in Dispatches six times . In 1921 he transferred from the military to the civil branch of the IMS which he continued to serve with until 1936 . Medical career . In July 1921 he was put in charge of the quinine and malaria inquiry under the newly formed Central Malaria Bureau . He was appointed the first director of the malaria survey of India at Kasauli in 1925 where he worked with Sir S . R . Christophers . He became Manson fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and at the malaria laboratory of the Ministry of Health at Horton Hospital , near Epsom . He also became adviser on malaria to the Ministry of Health . With the outbreak of the Second World War , Sinton was recalled as an IMS reservist and commanded a hospital in India . At the age of fifty - five he was again retired , but was appointed consultant malariologist to the east African force and later to Middle East command , retiring with the honorary rank of brigadier in August 1943 . He then worked as consultant malariologist to the War Office , travelling widely to Assam , Australia , Burma , Ceylon , India , New Guinea , and the Solomon Islands , where his expertise in malaria was invaluable . Further military decorations resulted from this period , after which Sinton returned to Northern Ireland and retired to Cookstown . He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1946 . Other activities . He is the only person to have had the letters " VC , FRS " following their name . In his retirement he served as Deputy Lieutenant for County Tyrone and , in 1953 , as High Sheriff of Tyrone . At Kasauli , Sinton met Eadith Seymour Steuart - Martin ( 1894 – 1977 ) , daughter of Edwin Steuart - Martin and Ada May Martin ( née Martin ) , whom he married on 19 September 1923 . Their daughter , Eleanor Isabel Mary Sinton , was born at Kasauli on 9 December 1924 . His name is remembered in Sinton Halls , a student housing block at the Queen ' s University , Belfast , here he sat on the senate and was a Pro - Chancellor . Others honoured Sinton by naming three mosquito species , Aedes sintoni , Anopheles sintoni , and Anopheles sintonoides , one sandfly species , Sergentomyia sintoni , and one subgenus Sintonius of the genus Phlebotomus , after him . He died at his home at Slaghtfreedan Lodge , Cookstown , County Tyrone , on 25 March 1956 and was buried with full military honours on 28 March at Claggan Presbyterian cemetery in Cookstown . Colonel H . W . Mulligan in an obituary in the British Medical Journal described him thus : " Sinton had an exceptionally quick , receptive , and retentive brain , but his greatness sprang not so much from his unusual intellectual gifts as from the simple qualities of absolute integrity and tremendous industry " His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Army Medical Services Museum at Aldershot .