Cecil Joseph Digan Langton was born on 17 March 1907, and educated at St Aloysius College, Sydney. He graduated MB BS from Sydney University in 1933, and then became a resident medical officer at Lewisham Hospital, Sydney, of which he was Medical Superintendent from 1934-5. In 1936 he came to England and obtained the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1939. While in England he worked at Queen Mary's Hospital for Children, Carshalton, and then as first assistant in the orthopaedic department at King's College Hospital, London, under Sir Thomas Fairbank. During the second world war Langton served as a Wing-Commander RAFVR, from 1943 till 1947, as an orthopaedic specialist under Sir Reginald Watson-Jones, and on demobilization he was awarded a British Orthopaedic Association Travelling Fellowship which took him to the United States and Canada. In November 1948 he returned to Australia as an experienced orthopaedic surgeon, and was appointed consultant in orthopaedics at the Royal North Shore Hospital, the Lewisham Hospital and also the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Sydney.