Born 11 June 1870 at Paringa sheep station, Murray River, South Australia, son of James Francis Cudmore and Margaret Bridge, his wife. He was educated at St Peter's College, Whinham, and Adelaide University, where he qualified in 1894. Coming to England he worked at the London Hospital under Sir Frederick Treves and (Sir) Arthur Keith, and served as house surgeon at St Mark's Hospital. He took the Conjoint diploma in 1896 and the Fellowship at the end of 1899. He married in 1901, and returning to Australia was appointed assistant surgeon to the Adelaide Hospital, becoming surgeon in 1904, and consulting surgeon on his retirement. He was also lecturer in clinical surgery at Adelaide University and was much influenced by that great character the dynamic professor of anatomy, Archibald Watson, FRCS. In the war of 1914 Cudmore served in the Australian Army Medical Corps in the Mediterranean, but having contracted typhus was invalided out of the service from 1916 to 1918 when he went back to France as a lieutenant-colonel. During the second war (1939-45) he was consulting surgeon to the 4th military district in Australia. He had been. created CMG in 1936 for public services, and was knighted in 1945. Cudmore helped to found the dental school in Adelaide University, and served as dean of the Faculty of dentistry. He was a member of the university council, and was successively president of the Dental Board and chairman of the Medical Board of South Australia. He was vice-president of the section of surgery of the Australasian Medical Congress when it met at Adelaide in 1937. Cudmore was a forthright, hardworking man of unassailable convictions and high principle, endowed with an accurate but unimaginative mind and great manual dexterity. He was admired and held in affection by countless friends. He had been a good footballer in his youth, and, later, was captain of Seaton golf club. His favourite amusement was duck and quail shooting, and when he found that he was using his left eye he had a goose-necked stock made in London for his gun, so that he could still shoot from the right shoulder. He was a pioneer of motoring in Australia, retained his SA4 registration to the end of his life, and was president of the Royal Automobile Association of Australia. He was a founding member of the St Peter's collegians masonic lodge. Cudmore married in 1901 Kathleen Mary, daughter of the Hon Wentworth Cavenagh Mainwaring, of Whitmore Hall, Staffordshire. He died at Adelaide on 27 February 1951, aged 80, survived by his wife and two daughters.