[1] He was born on 18 September 1865 in Mysore in India the eldest son of Isabella Mitchell and her husband, Surgeon General John Houston of the Indian Medical Service (IMS).

He was educated at Merchiston Castle School and then studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with an MB in 1889.

His proposers were Andrew Douglas Maclagan, Alexander Crum Brown, Charles Hunter Stewart and Sir Arthur Mitchell.

[3] In 1898 he began working for London County Council and in 1899 was employed as a bacteriologist with the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal.

In 1913 he visited Ottawa in Canada with Sir Alexander Binnie to report on that city's water supply.