John Camfield Balzer was a surgeon in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He was born on 16 May 1903 in Casino, New South Wales, the son of Theodore Edward Ernest Balzer, a manufacturer, and Maud Mary Theresa Balzer née Goggins. He was the great grandson of John Locke (1794 to 1880), born in Larling, Norfolk, who was transported to Australia for stealing two geldings. Balzer was educated at the Christian Brothers’ School in Warwick, Queensland and went on to Sydney University to study medicine, qualifying in 1926. He was a resident medical officer at the Mater Misericordae Hospital, north Sydney, for 12 months and was then appointed to the staff of the Government Hospital for the Insane, Liverpool, New South Wales. He then purchased a practice at Tallunbra in the Riverina district, where he stayed for five years. He sold the practice to his brother Noel Balzer and left for England. He was a house surgeon and registrar at the Princess Beatrice Hospital, London. He gained his FRCS in 1935. He returned to Australia, initially as medical superintendent at Wyalong District Hospital. During the Second World War he served in the Army, in the Second Australian Imperial Force, from 1939 to 1948, and reached the rank of major. He married Phyllis May Youmans, a nurse from the Princess Beatrice Hospital, in December 1934 in St Pancras, London. They had a daughter, Anne. John Camfield Balzer died on 19 August 1992. He was 89.