MRCS LRCP 1862; MD Heidelburg 1865.
Fairbank studied at the Royal Manchester School of Medicine and qualified in 1862. Fairbank was physician to Manchester City Mission and was senior surgeon at Chorlton Dispensary Manchester. Fairbank later moved to Devon and was an Admiralty Surgeon. Fairbank was a founder of the Anthropological Society in Manchester and a fellow of the Ethnological and Anthropological Societies in London.