Harold Love was born the son of a bank manager in the North Queensland town of Mareeba, and received his early education at the Brisbane Grammar School. He then went to Scotch College, Melbourne, won an exhibition to the University of Melbourne and studied medicine.

On graduating MB BS in 1926 he spent a year as resident medical officer at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and then returned to Queensland. He became an assistant to his uncle, Dr Wilton Love, a well-known Brisbane practitioner and then went into general practice in the suburb of Paddington until, on the outbreak of World War II, he joined the Army. This took him first to England in 1940 and then in 1941 to North Africa and the Siege of Tobruk. He was back in Australia in 1942 and took the examination for Membership of the College in that year.

From then onwards his career, both in the Army and after discharge, lay in general medicine and he was appointed junior physician to the Brisbane General Hospital in 1946, and physician to inpatients in the following year. He was also a visiting physician to the South Brisbane Auxiliary Hospital (previously the Diamantina and subsequently the Princess Alexandra) and a consulting physician to the Repatriation Department.

Harold was a good physician, erudite, devoted, careful and kind. He is remembered as a clinician and a teacher. Registrars sought appointment to his unit, his opinion on clinical problems was much in demand, and his students remember his teaching vividly and with gratitude. As one would expect from such a personality, it was illuminated by his clinical acumen, by shafts of wit and by his wide reading and his deep and understanding humanity. Harold played a prominent though not obtrusive part in the life of the Brisbane medical community. He was chairman of the Queensland state committee of the College and president of the Queensland branch of the BMA.

People remember him affectionately as a good companion. He had a wide knowledge of wine and food and could share his enjoyment; he had a ready wit and his love of reading provided him with a wide-ranging knowledge. But above all he was a master of the art of conversation; talk was never allowed to flag or to become sectionalised; the pompous were deflated, albeit gently, and the diffident were encouraged. He founded the Queensland branch of the Wine and Food Society, which still sets a glass for him at its dinners. Dr Harold Love’s son, Dr JFR Love is a Fellow of the College.