[1] At the age of eight, in 1872, Souter's family moved to Nottingham, England, where he attended Highgate and University College Schools.

His father, also a medical practitioner, became his supervisor when, at the age of 14, he was enrolled in the Royal College of Surgeons.

He married Lucy de Neufoille Lucas in 1896 and, after finishing in Balaklava, he worked in a number of South Australian towns before settling in North Adelaide in 1925, where he remained until his death in 1944.

[3] A writer in The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature noted: "Souter wrote bush ballads and sea shanties as well as straightforward lyrical verse.

His bush ballads, which reflect the daily life of the small farms of SA, are sensitive to the experience and idiom of a wide range of personalities, both male and female.