Max Harvey Ellis was an honorary surgeon at Blacktown Hospital, New South Wales. He was born in Bega, New South Wales on 8 September 1933. His father, Ashley Thomas Ellis, was a veterinary surgeon; his mother, Muriel Elizabeth Flora Ellis née Morrison, was the daughter of a grazier. He studied at Dubbo High School and then at Sydney University. At medical school he won the Kay prize for proficiency. At Sydney Hospital he was a junior and then a senior resident medical officer and a resident pathologist. In 1959 he was a demonstrator in anatomy at Sydney University. He then spent a year as an assistant surgical registrar at Sydney Hospital. He gained his fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1962 and of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1963. From 1963 to 1964 he was a surgical registrar at Rushgreen Hospital in Romford, Essex. He was then a surgical registrar at the King George Hospital in Ilford until 1965. He returned to Australia, where he became an honorary surgeon at Blacktown Hospital and an honorary assistant surgeon at the Rachel Forster Hospital, Sydney. Outside medicine, he enjoyed golf, fishing and music. He was unmarried. Ellis died on 29 August 2017 in Wahroonga, New South Wales. He was 83.