Eric Langley was born in Melbourne in 1910, his father having been a member of the staff of the Alfred Hospital. He was educated at Melbourne Grammar School, and graduated in medicine at Melbourne University in 1933, having had a good academic record and done well in athletics. He then held a junior post at the Alfred Hospital, and having married an English girl they came over to England to enable him to train for the FRCS, which he obtained shortly before the outbreak of the second world war. He joined the RAF and after service in several stations in England he and his wife managed to get back to Australia, where he joined the Royal Australian Air Force as a Flight-Lieutenant in 1941. He was promoted to Squadron-Leader in 1942 and served in two hospitals in Melbourne, and in 1943 he was posted to New Guinea with the rank of Wing-Commander. There he won a reputation for surgical skill and devotion to his work, and in April 1944 he returned to a RAAF hospital at Concord, New South Wales where he remained till demobilization in 1945. While at Concord he not only impressed his neighbours as a sound surgeon, but he and his wife found the neighbourhood congenial and thought of settling in Sydney, which they did when Langley was appointed to the Staff of the Royal North Shore Hospital. Meanwhile the RAAF hospital at Concord was moved to Richmond, and he was glad to continue his association with the service by becoming visiting surgeon at Richmond which he attended regularly at least once a week right up till the time of his death. For his tireless service to the RAAF he was awarded the OBE in 1963. Though he had little time for outside interests, his hobbies may be said to have been horticulture and fast motor cars; but his chief enjoyment was derived from the pleasures of family life. He died suddenly on 15 October 1971, and as one of his friends put it "he left us as unobtrusively as he had lived". His wife and family survived him.