Paul Jones was born in Bendigo, Victoria, on 4 November 1903, the second son of John James Jones. He attended Bendigo High School and won a scholarship to Melbourne University where he qualified MB BS in 1927. After working at the Royal Melbourne Hospital he moved to England where he held posts at St Bartholomew's and the Middlesex Hospitals while studying for his FRCS which he obtained in 1932. During the second world war he served as Lieutenant-Colonel with the BCOF in Japan. He returned to the Royal Melbourne Hospital where he eventually (in 1963) became consultant surgeon. He also held posts as Stewart Lecturer in surgery at Melbourne University and as out-patient surgeon to the Children's Hospital. He was also a police medical officer and a life governor of the Royal Children's Hospital. His interests were golf, painting and books (particularly Australiana). In 1933 he had married Joy Frances Cowper Tennent, a distant relative of the poet William Cowper, and they had four daughters. He died on 6 September, 1979.