He was educated locally then studied medicine primarily at the University of Edinburgh but also at Montpellier, Berlin and Vienna, graduating with an MD in 1856 with the thesis "On the anatomy of the umbilical cord" .

[7] In 1871 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh his proposer being John Hutton Balfour.

[8] He was a member of the United Free Church of Scotland and helped to run the Carrubbers Close Mission.

He was grandfather to the geographer Alexander Rudolph Barbour Simpson FRSE (died 1977).

He was paternal uncle to Thomas Blantyre Simpson FRSE QC.