Ronald Peter Yaxley was a consultant urologist in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. He was born in Brisbane on 29 December 1929, the son of William Mark Yaxley, a locomotive engine driver, and Christina Louise Gladys Yaxley née Bendixen. He was educated at Windsor State School, Brisbane, and Brisbane State High School and went on to study medicine at the University of Queensland. He qualified in 1950. He held junior posts at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, including as a temporary lecturer in anatomy, and then travelled to the UK for further training. In London he worked at Queen Mary’s Hospital for the East End and as a clinical assistant at St Paul’s Hospital. He gained his fellowships of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1955 and of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1956. In 1957 he returned to Brisbane, where he was appointed to the staff of the Greenslopes and Mater hospitals. He also visited Xavier Hospital for Children and Montrose Home for Crippled children. He became a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1960. Outside medicine, he was interested in model railways, cars and motorboats. In 1952 he married Gwendoline Marie Weathered. They had three children, two sons and a daughter who lived for seven weeks. Yaxley died after a short illness on 22 August 1989. He was 62.