William (Bill) Lane was born at Bombala, NSW into a family with a noteworthy distaff side. His grandfather was Sir George Knibbs, Australia’s first Commonwealth Statistician, founder of the Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia. An uncle was an international chemical authority on building materials; a cousin was editor of the Melbourne Argus and chief Australian correspondent for the London Times. Bill’s father, a dental surgeon, had a busy Melbourne city practice in the 1920s but died in 1932 from a severe infection. Bill was educated at Trinity Grammar School, Melbourne, where he shone in scholarship and sports and edited the school magazine.

At the University, Bill passed first year in journalism, then changed to medicine. Graduation was followed by two resident years at the Melbourne Hospital, which left him inspired by the surgical expertise of Sir Alan Newton. It was war time however, so he enlisted in the AAMC, serving in the Middle East and being posted to the Sea Transport Company, until bleeding from a gastric ulcer caused his medical discharge in 1942. Then, with little choice, he went into a general practice in Castlemaine. This was intended as a one year locum, but he stayed eighteen years, building up a large practice. He kept up to date, visited Melbourne regularly and undertook his own clinical laboratory work because no reliable alternative services were available. With five young children and deepening roots in the local community he shelved serious postgraduate study until 1960, when he returned to Melbourne to study, not surgery but microbiology.

His major contribution to medicine was made at the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL), where his rise was meteoric. He joined the staff as a research worker in 1961; only a year later he was appointed chief of research; in 1965, working from CSL, he gained his MSc with a thesis on antibiotic streptomycetes in soils; and in 1966 he reached the top job as director of CSL with 1,000 employees.

Bill Lane was regarded as a very competent administrator, generally well liked by the staff. Although the demands of his office precluded active involvement with the College, he certainly appreciated his election as a Fellow and contributed indirectly through his research and policies at CSL and his participation in bodies like NHMRC. He prevented CSL’s commercial needs from overwhelming those of research and development; he modernised laboratories, promoted collaboration with other institutions, and encouraged especially younger investigators with good projects.

He showed great kindness often, and understanding and helpfulness with his staff and others in need. He received the Royal Humane Society’s bronze medal for descending a dangerous mine shaft to help an injured boy. He was highly intelligent and perceptive, a fast and prolific reader with a photographic memory, and he was an interesting and witty conversationalist. Otherwise, he occasionally appeared slightly aloof and could be excessively dogmatic and outspoken, e.g., his refusal ever to invite Anti-Cancer Council speakers to CSL because he (a heavy smoker) rejected their arguments, and his legendary public retort that a cabinet minister’s statement was ‘a load of old codswallop’. He belonged to Apex and sporting clubs, enjoyed woodwork and gardening, and had a happy family life with his wife Lesley and children, but he died at fifty-nine with abdominal cancer when ‘he still had so much to give’ (Galbraith).