Born on 7 March 1899 in Adelaide, Frederick Westwood Niesche was educated at St Peter's College, one of his class-mates being Howard Florey, later Baron Florey of Adelaide and Marston. Niesche was active in the School Cadet Corps and was on parade in 1912 at the special review of the Corps by Lord Kitchener, who had gone to Australia to review the Citizen Defence Forces. He graduated MB BS Melbourne in 1923 and early in 1925, he moved to Sydney where he held locum posts before settling in private practice in Manly. In the early 1930s he bought an old established practice in Balmain, from Dr Charles Wesley and soon afterwards he married Fanny Lothian Williamson. At the outbreak of war in 1939 he was called up and served first with the coast Garrison Artillery at North and South Heads. In December 1940 he joined the departing 2/6 Australian General Hospital on the Queen Mary as a surgical specialist with the rank of Major, under the officer commanding the surgical division, Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Coppleson FRCS. He later served in Palestine, Greece, Borneo and Queensland, being twice mentioned in despatches. After the war, he was appointed honorary surgeon to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and visiting surgeon to the Repatriation General Hospital at Concord. Frederick Niesche was particularly interested in the surgery of hiatus hernia, and carcinoma of the oesophagus, stomach, lung and larynx and his opinion and skills were widely sought, often by his colleagues and their families. His wife, Fanny, died after a long illness in 1962 and two of their sons graduated in medicine from the University of Sydney, becoming general surgeons at their teaching hospitals, the Royal Prince Alfred and the Sydney Hospital. One of them John Westwood Niesche is also an FRCS. In January 1976 he married Enid, Lady Coppleson, the widow of his former commanding officer and she survived him when he died on 25 July 1981, aged 82 years.