John Henderson Bolton, born in Bendigo and the son of a bank manager, was educated at Wesley College Melbourne and the University of Melbourne, graduating in medicine in 1932. He joined the Royal Melbourne Hospital as resident medical officer and became medical superintendent in 1936. In this post he made a much appreciated contribution to the incidence of morbidity in the nursing staff when his detailed recording of the actual amount of food eaten led to substantial dietary improvement. His concern with nutrition, so important in his war years, lasted throughout his life. When he was undergoing his postgraduate training in London, war broke out and he enlisted immediately in the RAMC serving in France in the 17th General Hospital. In May 1940, he volunteered as an unmarried man to be one of six medical officers to remain behind to care for the wounded as France was evacuated. He was repatriated to the United Kingdom in 1943 with nephritis, which he characteristically studied in himself to the extent that camp facilities allowed. When he recovered he voluntarily returned to active service in Belgium and Germany which was a brave move indeed as further capture of a repatriated prisoner carried dire penalties. He was mentioned in despatches in 1946 and discharged with the rank of lieutenant colonel. In February 1944, he contributed a paper on his experience of diet and nutrition as a prisoner of war to the Inter Allied Conferences on War Medicine.

Returning to Melbourne with the Women's Royal Naval Service officer Elizabeth Rodwell (née Nankivell), whom he had married in 1944, he established a consultant medical practice which extended virtually to the time of his death. He was appointed to the medical staff of the Royal Melbourne Hospital as outpatient and later inpatient physician with periods as sub dean of the clinical school and as chairman of the honorary medical staff. He retired from that hospital in 1966. He was also a physician at the Heidelberg Hospital (Veterans) and a research scholar in the university department of obstetrics and gynaecology. He represented the medical staff of this hospital on the board of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research from 1958 to 1966 and ensured a close relationship between the Institute and the Hospital in that role. He was instrumental in the establishment of special clinics in haematology and cancer medicine at both the Royal Melbourne and Heidelberg Hospitals.

John Bolton's dominant interest was haematology but he was as well fascinated by and expert in statistical method. By 1961, he was able to list 28 published papers of which he was the sole or a major author, dealing largely with nutritional and haematological subjects. He believed firmly in supporting local journals, frequently contributing to the Royal Melbourne Hospital Clinical Reports and to the Medical Journal of Australia, and important observations on red blood cell fragility were published in the journal Blood in 1949 and on amino acid metabolism in pregnancy in the Lancet in 1960 and 1961. Towards the end of his life he was preparing or assisting in papers on fat distribution and on cancer chemotherapy. Few physicians in full time private practice can have achieved his research output. Not surprisingly, he devoted no attention to medical politics or to economics and it was not until 1964 that he was elected as a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. As a teacher he was outstanding. He eschewed dogmatism and was ever questioning, was fascinated by the changing patterns showing in the physical signs of a patient as an illness progressed or improved and would seek to explore the pathophysiological basis for such change. All treatment was to be evaluated objectively and hopefully tested statistically.

John's marriage with Elizabeth was enduringly happy but they were greatly saddened by the sudden death of their only child Hilary in 1956 when she was only 10 years old. They nevertheless were able to take delight from the addition to their family of Amanda Richardson who became their ward when she was 15 years old after the death of her parents. John had a life long interest in music. He played in a jazz band for pocket money as a student and he organised an orchestra when he was a prisoner of war in Germany. He loved golf, good wine, his clubs and his wide circle of friends. He was a remarkable and original man who left an indelible mark on the history of medicine in Australia.