John Aloysius Henderson was a visiting medical officer at Geelong Hospital, Victoria, Australia. He was born in Gundagai, New South Wales on 26 August 1932. His love of flying may have begun when, in his mother’s arms, he was the youngest ever passenger, at the time, to be flown by Charles Kingsford Smith, after whom Sydney Airport is named. He later learnt to fly and owned his own plane. He was educated at St Joseph’s Convent School, Quirindi, New South Wales from 1937 to 1943 and credited the Sisters of St Joseph for his love of copperplate handwriting. Although he won a bursary to Armadale Catholic College, his parents sent him to St Patrick’s College in East Melbourne for year seven, where he lived with his grandparents. They encouraged him to practise piano for an hour every evening, developing considerable expertise, which he retained and developed during his life. For his final four years of school, he boarded at St Ignatius’ College, Riverview, Sydney. He matriculated with the school prize for music and honours in history. He entered Newman College at the University of Melbourne for his six years of medical studies, graduating in 1955. He also took up middle distance running, gaining a blue in athletics in his final year, with his best time for 800m (880 yards) being 1:56min (only 8.3 seconds behind the winning time at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics). He also represented the university at table tennis. Following graduation he was an intern at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne (in 1956), then a senior resident medical officer in Geelong (in 1957), the Royal Women’s Hospital (in 1958) and the Royal Children’s Hospital (in 1959). From 1961 to 1966 he was in general practice, including working for two years (from 1963 to 1965) as a medical officer to the Repatriation Artificial Limb and Appliance Centre in South Melbourne, before taking the opportunity to train as a surgeon, at the Alfred (in 1966), St Vincent’s, Melbourne (in 1967) and Mont Park (from 1968 to 1969) hospitals. In 1970 he travelled to the United Kingdom as a ship’s surgeon. In the UK he held surgical registrar positions and undertook courses to prepare for his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He passed the primary in 1971 and his final FRCS in May 1972. He also passed his fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons later that year, before returning to the UK to complete a trinity of fellowships with the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (in 1973). Whilst at St Margaret’s Hospital, Epping (in February 1973), he filmed an original operation for carpal instability performed by the orthopaedic surgeon Geoffrey Fisk. Decades later John’s detailed logbook of his photographs provided the critical evidence that Fisk had performed the operation years before those whose descriptions later claimed pre-eminence. Returning to Australia, he was appointed to the Geelong Hospital, Victoria, in 1973, where he worked as a visiting medical officer until his retirement in 2000. He also operated at the St John of God Hospital in Geelong from 1976 to 2000. He ran a medicolegal practice from 1980 to 2021, writing his reports in stylish copperplate handwriting and always in black ink. His somewhat flamboyant but perfect penmanship was, and is, somewhat unusual for a doctor. He always took a great interest in people and their history, so found that many patients whom he examined expressed their gratitude that ‘finally someone had just listened to them’. From 1981, John began to create photographic records of the annual meetings of the Provincial Surgeons of Australia. He generously provided, at his own expense, spare copies of his photographs for delegates to enjoy and archive at the following year’s meetings. From 1996, at the request of Royal Australasian College of Surgeon’s councillor Peter King, he compiled photographic records of the RACS annual scientific congress, a service that extended for more than 25 years. Other RACS events such as the bi-annual Cowlishaw symposia were also photographed. In 2006, he received a certificate of outstanding service from RACS for his contributions to the history of the college. His photographs were archived in albums and later digitally on CD/DVD and are now stored in the RACS archives. In 2016, he was awarded the RACS medal for ‘his meritorious contribution in the development of a permanent photographic record of the events of the college’. John Henderson was a remarkable individual and surgeon. The word polymath also comes to mind, because over the course of his 92 years, he succeeded in such a wide range of fields. Unlike some polymaths he was also a good bloke, respectful and kind to those he met. His wife Pam described him as ‘a true gentleman, a gentle man and loyal, somewhat eccentric, yet self-effacing, even shy, preferring to hide behind the camera which was his tool to record every possible event!’ John died on 5 March 2025. He was survived by Pam (née Currigan), his wife of 55 years, four children (Mary, David, Jane and Michael) and eight grandchildren.