William Roy Carswell was born in 1915, the son of a Dunedin doctor, and was educated in the University of Otago where he graduated MB ChB in 1939. He was appointed house surgeon to Wellington Hospital and then joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He had a distinguished military career and was awarded the Military Cross for his services in the Western Desert. Carswell returned to New Zealand at the end of 1944 and became surgical registrar in Palmerston North. In due course he proceeded to London where he gained valuable clinical experience and passed the FRCS Examination in 1949. He then returned to Palmerston North where he was appointed consultant to the hospital and developed a special interest in paediatric and gastrointestinal surgery. He took an active part in training members of the junior hospital staff, and supplemented his own experience by visits to clinics in England, the United States, and Australia. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1950. As an undergraduate he was keen on gymnastics, and followed the example of his father as a fly fisherman, passing on the love to his own son. His other leisure pastime was swimming, and he coached his children who in turn won many swimming prizes. Carswell was a very friendly, helpful person who enjoyed a happy home life with his wife, two daughters and his son who all survived him when he died at an unduly early age of a coronary attack at his home in Palmerston North on 8 November 1971.