Born in Victoria, Australia on 13 May 1878, son of John Devine, a grazier in the Werribee district, he was educated at St Patrick's College, Ballarat. After a country apprenticeship in pharmacy, he was employed by Henry Francis, an old established pharmacist in Bourke Street, Melbourne, whose shop was a meeting place for many prominent doctors including Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, the leading surgeon at that time. He began his medical studies at Queen's College, Melbourne University, where he graduated in 1907 with first-class honours in medicine, also gaining the Beaney Prize in surgery. After serving twelve months as resident medical officer at the Melbourne Hospital, be became acting medical superintendent and was associated with Thomas Dunhill, whose brother had been his friend at Queen's College. Dunhill persuaded the authorities at St Vincent's Hospital to appoint Devine to the staff of the then young hospital, which was soon enlarged and became a clinical school of the University. He went to Vienna in 1911, working in the Allgemeines Krankenhaus, where clinical roentgenology was then being developed in study of disease of the alimentary tract; this turned Devine's interest towards gastric surgery. After further study in Britain and America he returned to Melbourne in 1913 and proceeded to the degree of Master of Surgery. His whole surgical career was bound up with St Vincent's Hospital, where he became Dean of the Medical School and senior surgeon. During the war of 1914-18 he served as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Australian Army Medical Corps. He described his developing technique and experience in gastro-intestinal surgery at the BMA Congress in Brisbane in 1921, and his paper became a classic landmark. About this time Louis Barnett of New Zealand suggested that there should be an Australasian College of Surgeons, in view of the beneficial effect in the United States of the foundation of the American College in 1912. William Mayo and other American surgeons visited St Vincent's Hospital in 1924, watched Devine operate, and invited him to address the American College in 1925 on the basic principles and difficulties of gastric surgery. Thereafter Devine lent all his energies to the foundation of the Australasian College, with the collaboration of Sir George Syme, Hamilton Russell and Alan Newton, and on its foundation in 1927 was elected one of the first councillors, becoming Vice-President in 1933 and President 1939-41, and retiring from the council in 1948. In 1927 he also launched the *Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery*, being entirely responsible for the first two numbers, editorially and financially. He remained chairman of the editorial committee for twenty years. He was elected a Fellow of the American College in 1937, and an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1939. This Honorary Fellowship was formally conferred upon him in 1945, after the delay of the war years, by HRH the Duke of Gloucester, while Governor-General, and during the Duke's tenure of that office Devine was one of his honorary surgeons. His publications were numerous, his chief books being *Surgery of the Alimentary Tract* (1940) and *Surgery of the Colon and Rectum* (1948) written in collaboration with his only son John B Devine FRCS, who died in 1955 at the age of 42. Devine was highly skilled in thyroid surgery but his international reputation rested on his contribution to the advancement of abdominal surgery. He was an enthusiastic and lucid teacher. For recreation he enjoyed tennis, golf, fishing, yachting, and photography. In 1912 he married Mary, daughter of Edward O'Donnell of St Kilda, Victoria. They had one son and two daughters. Devine died at Melbourne on 18 July 1959 in his eighty-second year. Selected Publications: Basic principles and supreme difficulties of gastric surgery. *Surg Gynec Obstet* 1925, 40, 1-16. Early diagnosis of gastric cancer. *Med J Aust* 1926, 2, 209-218. Abdominal technique: system of operative exposures. *Surg Gynec Obstet* 1930, 50, 455-467. Sigmoidectomy with preservation of natural function. *Aust NZ J Surg* 1932, 2, 76-85. Surgery of encapsulating peritonitis. *Brit J Surg* 1932, 20, 204-213. Excision of the rectum. *Brit J Surg* 1937, 25, 351-381. Operation on defunctional colon. *Surgery*, 1938, 3, 165-194. H B Devine at St Vincent's Hospital. *Brit J Surg* 1936, 23, 654, with portrait.