Alan Britten Jones was born in Adelaide on 24 September 1898, the son of a South Australian Lands Department Surveyor. He went to school first at Xavier College, Melbourne, and later at Christian Brothers' College, Adelaide. As a medical student at Adelaide University he distinguished himself as a very good all-round athlete, gaining a blue for football in 1919, and winning the State 440 yards hurdles in what was then record time. He graduated MB BS in 1921, and then, after a house appointment at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, he came over to Britain and took the FRCS Edinburgh in 1925. He became a temporary assistant surgeon to the Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1928, and in 1930 the appointment was made permanent, and in the same year he became an out-patient surgeon at the Adelaide Children's Hospital. In 1936 he was promoted to the senior surgical staff of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and held this post till he retired in 1958, when he was appointed an honorary consulting surgeon. He was much appreciated as a teacher, and won the affection as well as the gratitude of the many young men who came to him for advice about their careers. Britten Jones was a very able general surgeon, whose extensive practice resulted from the personal, sympathetic care he devoted to all his patients. This outstanding feature in his professional work was the outcome of his religious convictions which permeated his whole life. He was for a time Master of the Guild of St Luke, an association of Roman Catholic doctors; he was on the Council of Aquinas College; and in 1965 the Pope honoured him with a Papal Knighthood of the Order of St Gregory the Great, Civil Class. During the second world war Britten Jones served with the 10th Casualty Clearing Station and the 109th Australian General Hospital with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Throughout his career he took his proper share in professional responsibilities, having served on the Council of the South Australian Branch of the British Medical Association, and on the State Committee of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, of which he was the Chairman from 1954 till 1957. His Fellowship of the College dated from 1932. He was honoured by the Royal College of Surgeons of England by election to the Fellowship in 1959. He died after a heart attack on 9 March 1966. Alan Britten Jones had a very happy home life with his wife Mary, who survived him, and his family of four sons and three daughters, of whom the eldest son Bob has followed in his father's footsteps as a surgeon to the Royal Adelaide Hospital and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.