BSc Manch 1934, MB ChB 1937, DPH 1939, MD 1945, DSc 1957; MRCP Lond 1960; FRCPath 1966.
Stratton was born in Manchester on 8 October 1913 and gained his medical education at Manchester, where he was awarded the Junior Dauntesey Medical Prize, the Turner Medical Prize and the Medical Clinical Prize. After qualifying, Stratton held resident appointments at MRI and Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, before being appointed clinical pathologist at MRI concerned with blood transfusion. During the Second World War, Stratton was deputy director of the EMS Transfusion Service in Manchester, and in 1946 was appointed director of the Regional Blood Transfusion Service. He was lecturer in human serology at the University of Manchester from 1947, being promoted to reader in 1968 and to professor in 1977. He was made honorary consultant to United Manchester Hospitals in 1963.In 1957 he was W.H.O. travelling fellow, and he acted as government advisor on blood transfusions on a number of occasions. He was a member of Manchester Medical Society, the British Society of Haematology, the British Society for Immunology, the International Society for Blood Transfusion and the International Society for Haematology.