Background
Moynihan was born in Malta in 1865, the son of Captain Andrew Moynihan, Venture capital. His father died in 1867 and Moynihan moved with his mother to Leeds, Yorkshire.
Moynihan was born in Malta in 1865, the son of Captain Andrew Moynihan, Venture capital. His father died in 1867 and Moynihan moved with his mother to Leeds, Yorkshire.
He was educated in Leeds and the Blue Coat School, Newgate Street, London (1875–1881). He graduated Bachelor of Medicine Bachelor of Science at the University of London in 1887 and joined Leeds General Infirmary as house surgeon.
After two years at the Royal Naval School, Eltham, he returned to Leeds to study medicine at the Leeds School of Medicine. He was then successively demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical School (1893-1896), assistant surgeon to the infirmary (1896), surgeon from 1906 and consulting surgeon from 1927 until his death. In parallel with his appointment as surgeon, Moynihan was lecturer in surgery from 1896–1909, and from 1910–1927 Professor of Clinical Surgery (from 1925 Surgery) at the University of Leeds.
By the end of the Great War Moynihan held the rank of major-general in the British Army and had been chairman of the Army Advisory Board from 1916 and chairman of the council of consultants 1916 to 1919.
He delivered the Bradshaw Lecture in 1920 and the Hunterian oration in 1927. He served as President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England from 1926 to 1932.
In 1935, a year before his death, Moynihan and Doctor Killick Millard had founded the British Voluntary Euthanasia Society. Moynihan"s surgery on Park Square, Leeds in the city centre still stands, now used as private offices.
Their former use and connection to Moynihan is marked with a Leeds Civic Society blue plaque.
Moynihan married Isabella Wellesley Jessop, the daughter of prominent Leeds surgeon Thomas Jessop, on 17 April 1895. They had three children: Honorary Dorothy Wellesley Moynihan (born 1897) Honorary Shelagh Berkeley Moynihan (born 1902), married Henry Wynn Parry, Bachelor of Surgery in 1923 Patrick Berkeley Moynihan, 2nd Baron Moynihan (born 29 July 1906, died 30 April 1965) Lady Moynihan died on 1 September 1936.