Robert Shannon was born on 10 May 1928 in Brisbane, Australia, the son of Reuben Samuel Shannon, a company manager, and Muriel Adeline, née Bone. He was educated at Brisbane Grammar School and Queensland University where he graduated MB BS in 1950, proceeded to the MS in 1955 and gained the Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1955. After house posts at the Royal Brisbane Hospital and an appointment there as the University of Queensland's teaching surgical registrar he came to Britain in 1956. He gained both the English and Edinburgh Fellowships in that year, and then became surgical registrar at Southend General Hospital. Returning to Queensland, he was surgical supervisor to the Royal Brisbane Hospital from 1956 to 1965 and visiting surgeon, general and vascular surgery, at that hospital from 1965. He was Chairman of the Queensland State Committee, Australian Association of Surgeons, from 1983 to 1986. He published numerous papers on abdominal surgery in the *Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery* and in the *Medical Journal of Australia*. He was an all-round sportsman, playing rugby union, hockey and cricket, and later golf. In 1946 he was the Queensland amateur surfing junior champion. He married Dorothy Frances Cashman, a registered nurse, in 1952. They had four children - David, a solicitor; Jennifer, a cardiovascular specialist in Columbia, South Carolina; and Robyn and Kaye, who both became nurses. Shannon died on 13 November 1991, survived by his wife and family.