Leslie Hurley was born in Everton, north-eastern Victoria, the son of Thomas Hurley, headmaster of the local school, and his wife Mary Elizabeth (nee Scholes). The fourth son in a family of seven, Leslie grew up in an atmosphere where learning was prized and from an early age it was his ambition to teach. His education began in State schools. Following in the footsteps of his brother Victor he won scholarships to Wesley College and later to Queen’s College, University of Melbourne. At Wesley he was called ‘Treacle’. This sobriquet had previously been given (for reasons which were never clear) to his brother Victor. For the remainder of his life Leslie was affectionately known as ‘Treacle Hurley’.

He started his medical course in 1911. On the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 Leslie, then in the fourth year of his course, immediately enlisted as a private in 2 Field Ambulance. He reached the rank of sergeant, served in Egypt and took part in the landing at Gallipoli. When medical students were sent home in 1915 Leslie did not wish to leave but later that year was evacuated seriously ill and returned to Australia to resume his medical course. He qualified in 1917, obtaining first-class honours in every subject. He subsequently obtained the degrees of MD and MS and was appointed a Fellow of Queen’s College. He became a foundation Fellow of the RACP in 1938. After a residency at the Melbourne Hospital, his love of teaching led him to an academic career, which at that time in Melbourne meant working in a non-clinical area. He was appointed senior lecturer in histology and embryology in the University of Melbourne in 1923 and physician to outpatients in the Melbourne Hospital in 1924. In 1933 his growing practice as a consultant physician led him to resign his university appointment in histology and embryology. He became physician to inpatients in 1935 and was appointed Stewart lecturer in medicine, in the University of Melbourne, the most senior post then available in academic medicine in Melbourne, in 1947.

Leslie Hurley was regarded by many of his contemporaries as one of the greatest consulting physicians in Melbourne. His work and teaching influenced many of the next generation to become physicians. His skill was based on the assiduous collection of clinical information and its logical analysis. His gift, for such it was, lay in the clarity and logic of his approach and his encyclopaedic knowledge of the preclinical sciences. Leslie Hurley influenced his students by his obvious competence, his anecdotes and, at times, his sense of the ridiculous. He evinced a clear preference for the man rather than the manner. Above all he was the friend, adviser and confidant of his patients.

After his death his lifelong friend and colleague, Sir Albert Coates, wrote:
The influence of great schoolmasters on the character of their pupils is not a new discovery. Hurley inherited the ability to teach and cultivated that talent which was to come to full flower as physician to the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Deeply versed in general medicine he was a representative of the Oslerian school. Diagnosis based on a meticulous interrogation of the patient, the social and family background, painstaking physical examination and then a resort to special investigation. With no empirical humbug, perhaps less bedsided manner than some affected, he was a pioneer in scientific medicine.

Little wonder that students flocked to his bedside clinics and that his name was a household word amongst hundreds of Victorian doctors. A modest man yet profoundly aware of his important role as a consulting physician, he thought nothing of leaving home at midnight on a 200 mile trip to help a colleague with a difficult medical problem. He was a doctor’s doctor. His piercing voice was heard early and late in the hallways and wards of many Melbourne hospitals. It is likely that his aphorisms will long be remembered and quoted in the corridors of Victorian medical institutions.

During World War II he was a part-time consultant physician to the RAAF with the rank of group captain, and worked in both Laverton and Heidelberg Hospitals.

His enthusiasm and influence as a teacher never diminished. His final ward round at the Hospital in 1951, on a hot September afternoon, started at the bedside in a ward, but as numbers of his old students, residents and colleagues grew it extended into the corridor and finally into the foyer with his audience standing on chairs and stairs to hear him for the last time.

He continued in active practice until 1966 when he developed a prolonged, painful and ultimately fatal illness. He had seven children. Three are medical graduates, and one of these, Ronald, is a Fellow of the College and a consultant radiotherapist at the Peter MacCallum Hospital.