George Hayes Brandis was born in Australia on 12 February 1896 and was educated at Melbourne University, qualifying in 1918 when the first world war was ending. After holding a resident post at Melbourne Hospital he served in the Rosemount Military Hospital in Queensland 1920-21, and was appointed to the surgical staff of the Ipswich General Hospital, Queensland in 1922. He came to England in 1930, and worked at the Gordon Hospital, Vauxhall Bridge Road, London under Ernest Miles and Lawrence Abel, who became his staunch friends; he obtained the Fellowship in 1931. He rejoined his hospital at Ipswich, Queensland from 1932 till 1939; in that year he was elected a Fellow of the Australasian College and was appointed to Brisbane General Hospital, where he was senior surgeon 1943-61, and was also consultant surgeon to the Goodman Mental Hospital. During the second world war he was commissioned as a Colonel in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps, but was invalided after some years' service. With J Myers he started a school of anatomy in an old building in Alice Street, Brisbane, which was later taken over by the new Queensland University; Brandis was also lecturer in general surgery at the University of Brisbane and to the Faculty of Dentistry. His favourite recreations were football and horse-racing; he raced several horses in partnership with his friend G R Nicholas, and they both served for many years on the committee of the Brisbane Amateur Race Club. Brandis died at Brisbane on 28 August 1969 aged seventy-three and was survived by his wife Irene.