Ron Lowe was consultant ophthalmic surgeon to the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. He was born in Melbourne on 14 November 1913, the third son of William E Lowe, a contractor, and Isabella née Hinde. He was educated at Wesley College, Melbourne, and qualified as a pharmacist at the University of Melbourne before changing to medicine. He graduated with first class honours and the prize in surgery. After junior posts, he joined the RAAMC and served in Papua New Guinea and Darwin, but towards the end of the war the Army seconded him to the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital to specialise in ophthalmology. After the war, he took the FRACS and came to England to gain the first Fellowship in ophthalmology to be awarded by examination by the College. On his return to Australia, he became consultant surgeon to the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, and eventually became senior ophthalmic surgeon and ophthalmologist in charge of the glaucoma unit. He published numerous papers, many of them on angle closure glaucoma, but more recently on the development of ophthalmic pioneers, both in Australia and overseas. He travelled extensively, studying glaucoma in China and noting many regional differences. The conjoined libraries of the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists, named after him, was opened in 1996. A tall and imposing man, he married Lois Olga Evans in 1941, by whom he had two sons, Rupert and Richard, one of whom painted the portrait of Ron which is preserved in his library. Lois predeceased him in 1985 and he then married Zena, a fellow ophthalmologist. He died on 26 March 1998.