The Paton family is traditionally descended from Captain John Paton, a well-known soldier and Covenanter, who lived at Meadowhead, Fenwick, Ayrshire, who fought at Marston Moor and other battles, but was finally executed as a 'rebel' in 1684. John (or Robert) Paton of Pentland, Ayrshire, was a railway engineer in Bangalore and later lived at Highbury Quadrant, London. His descendant, Robert Paton (6th October 1831 - 26 September 1893), buried at Abney Park Cemetery, married Jane Grace Rice (13th October 1838 - 2nd January 1889) on 20th January 1859. They had a family of five sons and three daughters, one of whom, Edith, married the Rev. H.W. Oldham, a missionary in China. The second son was Benjamin Lewis Paton, born 22nd December 1860 in Bangalore. In 1902 he married Janet Cavan Scott McFie (29 May 1869 - 25th August 1949), daughter of J.W. McFie, of Rowton Hall, Chester, and brother of Dr J.W.S. McFie. Robert Lewis Paton (b. 1905) was their eldest son.

Benjamin Lewis Paton took the degrees of MB, B.A. at Edinburgh in 1888 (his M.D. and D.P.H, qualifications date from 1906). Like his colleague of later years, Dr. Howie, he served at the Mildmay Bethnal Green Hospital under Dr. William Gauld, who had been part of the English Presbyterian Mission in China's first medical mission at Swatow, from 1863 to 1881. Paton paid a visit to the USA in 1881. In 1889 he himself joined the English Presbyterian Mission to assist at Chuan-Chow, where Dr Grant's health was giving cause for concern.

Paton went on leave in 1898 returning the following year with his sister Edith; she married the Rev. H.W. Oldham in 1907 but died in 1908. Paton left China in 1913 owing to the illness of his eldest child, leaving the hospital in the hands of Yap Sin-hun, whom he had trained (Band 1948, pp. 301-2 and 402).

Dr Paton's final journey to China was via the Siberian railway, in September 1912. After his return to England the following year he stayed for a time in Parkgate, Cheshire, then bought a practice in Rugeley, Staffordshire, where he worked as a G.P. until his death on 29 April 1936. In 1918 he was awarded the O.B.E. for his medical work at the military camp at Cannock Chase during the First World War.