David Schlicht was born in Beaufort, Victoria, Australia, on 25 July 1924. His father, Theodore, was a stock and station agent. He studied at Melbourne University and St Vincent's Hospital and gained honours in surgery. He came to Britain to study, and in 1951 he was demonstrator in anatomy at Cambridge University. In 1952-3 he was surgeon registrar at Queen Mary's Hospital. He gained the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1952, and in 1957 he became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He returned to Australia and in 1953 became assistant surgeon to the out-patients at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne; in 1958 he became senior assistant surgeon. He was also assistant surgeon to St Vincent's Hospital outpatients. In 1962 he became consulting paediatric surgeon to Footscray and District Hospital, and surgeon in charge in the paediatric unit at St Vincent's Hospital. He was also surgeon to the paediatric unit at Kew Children's Cottages, Melbourne. In 1953 he married Norma Fitzgerald, and they had three sons and two daughters. The eldest daughter, Susan, is a doctor. Theodore Schlicht, eldest brother of David, is a psychiatrist in London. David Schlicht died on 7 October 1973, aged 49, due to astrocytoma of the brain.