Dalrymple was born in 1772 in Norwich, England, where his father, a native of Dumfriesshire and relative of the Earl of Stair, had settled.
[1] After an apprenticeship in London to Messrs. Devaynes & Hingeston, court apothecaries, and studying at the Borough hospitals under Henry Cline and Astley Cooper, he returned to Norwich in 1793 and opened a surgery in his father's house.
[1] His ardent advocacy of liberal opinions slowed his progress for some years, and it was not till 1812 that he became assistant-surgeon of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, being elected a full surgeon in 1814.
[1] He formed a valuable collection of anatomical and pathological preparations, which he gave to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital on his retirement from practice in 1844.
[1] He is interred directly below the surgeon Robert Liston in the Terrace Catacombs on the west side of Highgate Cemetery.