Born at Newcastle, New South Wales, in 1903, he was educated at St Joseph's College and studied medicine at Sydney University, graduating in 1926. He was house surgeon at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital for one year and at the Prince Henry Hospital for a further year, before he entered private practice at McMahon's Point, Sydney. In 1934 he went to England to study orthopaedic surgery and was appointed house surgeon at Oswestry. He became resident medical officer at the Margaret Reid Hospital for Children, Leasowe, Liverpool, and later superintendent, but joined the Army at the outbreak of war in 1939. He served in the Middle East and in Italy as an orthopaedic specialist and, when Rowley Bristow returned to England in 1945, he was appointed consultant orthopaedic surgeon in the Middle East with the rank of Brigadier; he was closely associated in this work with Philip Mitchiner. He then returned to Leasowe as superintendent, and took the Fellowship in 1946 after postgraduate study at Guy's Hospital. He was a member of the British Orthopaedic Association. At the end of 1946 he went back to Australia on the invitation of Dame Jean Macnamara, having accepted appointment as superintendent of the Children's Hospital at Frankston, Victoria. In 1947 he was appointed orthopaedic surgeon to St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, in the clinic established by Denis Glissan, and was also appointed orthopaedic surgeon of Lewisham Hospital. In addition he was orthopaedic surgeon to the Repatriation Department, and consultant at St Joseph's Hospital, Auburn. He practised at 143 Macquarie Street, Sydney. He married at Leasowe in 1946 Teresa Sheridan, who survived him with two sons: Daniel Sheridan McEwen and Andrew William McEwen. He died at Sydney on 13 October 1954. Publications: Battle casualty fractures of femur, treatment with penicillin, with J G Bickerton. *Brit J Surg* 1944, 32, 154-158. Compound fracture of femur: two-stage operation, with J G Bickerton and M F Pilcher. *Lancet* 1945, 1, 623-624. Dislocations of cervical spine treated by open reduction, with J. G. Bickerton. *J Bone Jt Surg* 1945, 27, 679-682.