Charles Wilson was a surgeon at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. He was born in Adelaide on 3 April 1924. His father, Sir George Wilson, was a founding fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and a foundation fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. His mother, Elsa May Cuzens, had been a nurse. He was educated at St Peter’s College, Adelaide, and Adelaide University, where he won a blue for golf. After qualifying in 1947 he was an intern at the Royal Adelaide Hospital for 15 months before joining the RAMC, serving with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan for a year. He returned to Australia to spend a year as a resident at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital. He then went to England to study for the FRCS, working at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith, and Kingston General Hospital. After passing the Edinburgh and English fellowships he returned to Australia in 1954. He was first a registrar and then a senior registrar at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. In 1959 he became an honorary assistant surgeon, becoming a full surgeon in 1969 and a senior visiting surgeon in 1970. He remained at the Royal Adelaide Hospital until 1988. In 1967 he led the South Australian Civilian Surgical Team to South Vietnam, and in 1969 was lieutenant colonel surgeon at the First Australian Field Hospital for three months, remaining as consulting general surgeon to Central Command from 1969 to 1979. At the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons he was chairman of the South Australia state committee, coordinator of surgical training from 1975 to 1980, and served on the Court of Examiners. He was a keen golfer, serving as captain and later president of the Royal Adelaide Golf Club. He married Lois Penelope Fox: they had two daughters, Susan and Philippa, and one son, Thomas Graham Wilson, who is a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. Charles Wilson died on 15 August 2005.