Ernest Cotton Deane MC (4 May 1887 – 25 September 1915) was a medical officer of the British Indian Army and an Irish international rugby player.

Deane was commissioned into the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1911, after a period as house surgeon at the Adelaide Hospital, Dublin.

He was deployed immediately to the Western Front, where he served first with the 20th Field Ambulance and then as medical officer of the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Leicestershire Regiment.

[10] Deane himself was commissioned temporary lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) on 28 July 1911,[11] confirmed 9 February 1912.

[5] He was attached to the 20th Field Ambulance, and later served as medical officer of the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Leicestershire Regiment, in active service on the Western Front.

[10] Frederick Conway Dwyer, president of the RCSI, proudly read out Deane's citation in an address to students of the college, and commended recent licentiates to enter the RAMC.

Captain Deane, without any knowledge of the enemy's strength, at once got over the parapet and ran by himself to the spot under rifle and machine gun fire.

[16] According to the personal account of George Wilfred Grossmith, after the battle, the battalion ceased to exist, and most of the other regiments of the Meerut Division were decimated.

[17] The artillery bombardment prior to the infantry assault had failed to destroy all of the German barbed wire defences, and some men got caught up in them.

His Colonel, who was himself badly wounded, wrote to his family saying: He was the most gallant fellow I ever met, and we all loved him in the regiment, both officers and men.