Frank Sutcliffe Bowly was born on 17 March 1925 in Sydney, the son of Francis, a sheep farmer, and his wife Olga. His grandfather, Charles William Bowly, was a pioneer grazier from England who had settled in Australia in 1873. Until the age of thirteen Frank Bowly was educated by correspondence as his family were living in an isolated property in Western Queensland and there was no school of the air at that stage. In 1938 he became a boarder at the Church of England Grammar School in Brisbane and proceeded to the University of Queensland Medical School in 1944. He qualified MB BS in 1949 and did resident jobs in the Royal Brisbane Hospital before coming to England for postgraduate surgical training. Between 1952 and 1958 he occupied junior surgical posts in Rochester, Greenwich, Lewisham and Richmond, during which time he passed the FRCS. He returned to Australia in 1958 when he was appointed surgeon to the Greenslopes Repatriation Hospital in Brisbane, subsequently becoming visiting surgeon to the Gold Coast Hospital in Southport, Queensland. He made two study tours to the United States in 1971 and 1974, visiting the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and the M D Andersen Hospital in Houston. He was a keen sportsman, being in the university first team for rowing and rugby whilst at medical school, and subsequently becoming a skilled sailor. In 1973 he built a fourteen-foot catamaran for his teenage daughter who competed in state and national championships. He was a man of great integrity without pretension, who was held in high esteem by his colleagues, staff and patients alike. Above all he was greatly loved by his family - he always came home to them with a smile. He died at the early age of 57 on 24 September 1982 being survived by his wife Olive, a nurse who trained at Guy's Hospital, and his three children, Susan, Malcolm and Ian.