Henry Simpson Newland was born in Adelaide, South Australia on 24 November 1873. He was of the third generation of a pioneer family that settled on the south coast of South Australia in 1839. He was educated at St Mary's College and the University of Adelaide, graduating MB BS in 1896. He then came to England and entered the London Hospital and took the Conjoint Diploma in 1897, and the FRCS in 1899. He was, therefore, the last surviving surgeon to have gained his FRCS in the 19th century and was, at the time of his death, the College's Senior Fellow. It is noteworthy that he was present, in 1900, at the centenary celebrations held to mark the founding of the Royal College of Surgeons and was again present in 1950 at the celebrations to mark the 150th anniversary. No-one else from the 1900 occasion was there. He also studied in Paris, Prague, Vienna and the USA. In 1901 he was appointed surgical registrar at the London Hospital. In 1902 he returned to Australia and took his MS degree. He was appointed surgeon to the Adelaide General Hospital and to the Children's Hospital. He was among the first to offer his services on the outbreak of war in 1914 and served with the Australian Army Corps in Egypt, Gallipoli and Lemnos. After the Gallipoli campaign he went to France and in 1918 became commanding officer with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel of the Australian section of Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup, where he did much plastic surgery, then in its early days of development. He represented the Australian Army Corps on the Council of Consultants at the War Office, and later at the Inter-Allied surgical conferences in Paris. For all these contributions he was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the DSO in 1918, and in 1919 was appointed CBE. He returned to Australia in 1920 to continue a busy surgical life, especially in plastic surgery. He was also very active in all medical matters in the Australian Commonwealth. He was President of the Surgical Section of the Australasian Medical Congress in 1920. He became FACS in 1924, FRACS in 1926, and Hon FRCS Edin in 1935. He played an important part in the founding of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, was a member of the Council from 1927 till 1947, and became its second president, serving from 1929-1934. He was knighted in 1928. He was made Hon DSc in 1948 by the University of Western Australia and in 1951 received the Hon LLD from the University of Melbourne. For a time he was President of the Flying Doctor Service. His interest in the British Medical Association dated back to 1918-19 when he was a member of its Council. In 1922 he became president of the first Australian branch to be formed, the South Australian Branch. In 1932 he was elected vice-president of the British Medical Association and in 1955 was awarded its gold medal for his outstanding services. He was a member of the Australian Federal Committee, later the Federal Council, from 1921, and served as its president from 1931-1948. The Federal Council awarded him its gold medal in 1937 and in 1950 established in his honour the Henry Simpson Newland Oration and the Henry Simpson Newland Prize in Surgery. The numerous honours and awards detailed above testify to the esteem in which he was held throughout Australia and also outside his own country. His influence in founding the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons continued to guide the many matters that concerned the important relations between it and the mother College in England. As a venerable and respected senior surgeon intimately concerned with both Colleges he helped greatly in main-taining the friendly and fruitful relations between them. He married Ellen Mary Lindon, and they had a son and two daughters, all of whom survived him. He died on 13 November 1969, a few days short of his 96th birthday.