Charles Barclay Innes was a consultant surgeon at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland. He was born in Gisborne, New Zealand, on 17 December 1909. His father, James Innes, was a real estate agent. His mother was Mabel Sarah née Tosland. His grandfather, Francis William Innes, was assistant surgeon to the 84th Regiment of Foot, and served at the relief of Lucknow. Charles was educated at Gisborne High School and Otago University, Dunedin. After serving as house surgeon at Auckland Hospital, he went to England to specialise in surgery, and did junior posts at Great Ormond Street, Bethnal Green and St James's Hospital, Balham, where he worked for Henry Vernon and Norman Tanner. In 1942, he was surgical registrar to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He returned to Auckland in 1946, at first as surgical registrar and then as consultant surgeon at the Middlemore Hospital. He became President of the Auckland division of the Cancer Society of New Zealand, was secretary of the Auckland division of the BMA and President of the Mastectomy Association. He published papers on grease gun injuries, diverticular disease and sigmoid myotomy, and on inherited forms of cancer. He married Mona née Forbes, an anaesthetist, in 1941. They had two sons, David Barclay, a general surgeon in New Zealand, and John Ashley, and one daughter, Margaret Lindsay. He died on 2 August 2001.