Ian Ayliffe Hamilton was a surgeon in Adelaide, Australia. He was born in Geelong, South Australia, on 22 October 1901, the son of Frank Hamilton, a winemaker, and Violet Elsie May Hamilton née Ayliffe. He was educated at St Peter's College, Adelaide, and then studied medicine at Adelaide University, qualifying in 1924. While he was training he was influenced by Sir Henry Newland. Hamilton was a house surgeon at Adelaide Hospital and then an honorary resident surgeon at Adelaide Children's Hospital (1932 to 1936) and at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (1935 to 1950). From 1950 to 1959 he was a surgeon at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and from 1959 to 1961 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Adelaide. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps, on the hospital ship *Wanganella* in the Middle East and Pacific islands. He was demobilised with the rank of major. Outside medicine he was interested in rowing, farming and viticulture. In 1925 he married Irene S Mildred. They had a son, a urologist, and two daughters, one of whom was an anaesthetist. Ian Ayliffe Hamilton died on 2 February 1997. He was 95.