Sir Ronald Ross was born in 1857 at the British Army’s Almora hill station in the North-West of India. At the age of 8 he was sent to live on the Isle of Wight with a great-uncle for schooling, entering St Bartholomew’s medical school in 1874. He joined the Indian Medical Service in 1881, serving in India until 1899, although his time in India included two periods of furlough in Britain in 1888 and 1894. During the first period of furlough, he met and married his wife, Rosa Bessie Ross (neé Bloxam), with whom he had four children, and in the second period of furlough he met with Sir Patrick Manson, founder of the LSHTM, to discuss malarial transmission.