Murray Pheils was professor of surgery at the University of Sydney. He was born in Birmingham on 2 December 1917, the younger of the two sons of Elmer Theodore Pheils, an osteopath, and Lilian Mary née Cole. His father Elmer was a colourful character: he was born in Toledo, Ohio, and trained as an o

Born on 8 April 1897 in Melbourne son of Charles Robert Rogers and Janet Chant, he was educated in Melbourne until 1915, when at the age of 18 he joined the Australian Naval Transport Service in which he served until 1917. He then came to the Middlesex Hospital to resume his interrupted medical stud