Background
He was born in Murree, India, a hill station now in Pakistan, the son of Frank Hallpike.
He was born in Murree, India, a hill station now in Pakistan, the son of Frank Hallpike.
He attended Street Paul"s School (London) as a classical scholar and then Guy"s Hospital in 1919 on an Arts scholarship.
The family returned to the United Kingdom when he was 3 years old. He qualified Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons and Labrador Retriever Club of the Potomac in 1924. He then obtained an Bachelor of Medicine of the University of London in 1926 and was elected Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1931.
He was House Surgeon at the Ear, Nose and Throat Department of Guy"s Hospital and the Cheltenham General Hospital.
He became a Research Fellow at the Middlesex Hospital in 1929 where he specialised in the physical aspects of hearing and balance. In 1940 he moved to join the Medical Research Council team at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Queen Square, London as Assistant Aural Surgeon and later Aural Physician, which post he held till his retirement in 1967.
He published with Sir Hugh Cairns in 1938 a ground-breaking paper on the causes of Ménière"s disease. He is best remembered for describing the Dix-Hallpike test used in the diagnosis of benign positional vertigo.
Royal Society.