John Wedgwood Graham, the son of John Machefer Graham, a farmer and grazier, and of Ivy Maud (née Wedgwood), a descendant of Charles Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood, was born on 1 June 1921 at Narrabri, New South Wales. His grandfather, John Bass Graham, was a medical graduate from Dublin who practised in London before settling in Sydney as an ENT surgeon in 1906. His great uncle, Charles Hunter Graham, graduated in medicine at Edinburgh in 1884 and became FRCS England in 1892. With these interesting family connections, after education at Marshall Mount Preparatory School, Killara, and Knox Grammar School, Wahroonga, John Graham entered the University of Sydney, where he won the Craig Prize for operative surgery and surgical anatomy and the John Wyeth Prize for obstetrics, and graduated with honours in 1944. After resident appointments at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, he served in the Australian Army Medical Corps from 1945 to 1947, and was demobilised with the rank of Captain before returning to the Royal Prince Alfred as senior resident and registrar. He came to Guy's Hospital in 1949 for the Fellowship course and took final FRCS in the following year. He then held surgical registrar appointments at Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, King Edward VII Hospital, Ealing, and at St Mark's, City Road. On returning to Australia he was appointed assistant surgeon to St Vincent's Hospital in 1954 and became Chairman of the division of surgery there in 1975. He also held a surgical appointment at the St George Hospital, Koogarah, where he introduced vascular surgery in 1960. In the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons he was a member of the New South Wales State Committee from 1970 to 1978 and Chairman from 1976 to 1978. He served as a member of the board of examiners for the primary FRACS 1954-68 and was a member of the Court of Examiners from 1974 to 1984. He was also a member of Council of the Australian Physiotherapy Association and a member of his parish council at All Saints' Church, Woollahra. His many other outside interests included reading poetry and the classics, bush- walking, trout-fishing and skiing. He was also keen on tennis and golf, swimming and snorkelling. He published a number of papers on general surgical and vascular subjects, mainly in Australian and also in British and American journals. He married Margaret Stanley Lavender, a physiotherapist, in 1945. They had a daughter, Janet, who married a surgeon and a son, Peter, who was killed aged 30, whilst mountain climbing in Peru. When he died on 5 August 1985 he was survived by his wife and daughter.