William McIntosh Rose was the eldest of three sons of Charles and Thirza Rose. His father, Charles William Rose was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, but moved to Melbourne as a young boy and became City Engineer of Richmond. His mother, Thirza Mary Turner, was a nurse who was born and grew up in Tasmania. Bill attended Malvern Grammar School and matriculated equal dux in 1934. He entered Melbourne University Medical School in 1935. Throughout his school days and during the medical course he had the problem of a stammer which was quite incapacitating at times. He graduated in 1940 with 1st class honours in Medicine and Surgery, and shared the top position with John Lindell.

His first year Residency at the Royal Melbourne Hospital was cut short by war so that in September 1940 he was accepted into the Australian Army Medical Corp. He completed a course in tropical medicine in Sydney, followed by army training in Wangaratta. At this time he was withdrawn from routine training because of his speech impediment, and after Pearl Harbor he was posted to Port Moresby to take over the duties of the only private practitioner in that town. When the civilian population was withdrawn from this area he became responsible for medical services to the garrison, and joined Captain W E King, who was responsible for medical services to the AMF. With the fall of Rabaul, the Port Moresby group became part of the New Guinea force. When it was known there were substantial New Guinea force members who had escaped from Rabaul to the south coast of New Britain after the Japanese invasion, he volunteered to join a rescue mission under the command of a former New Guinea patrol officer, a naval reservist named Ivan Champion. Using the former Governor’s yacht The Laurabada, this most successful mission was carried out well inside Japanese lines. Approximately 170 civilians and military persons in extremely poor health were taken to Port Moresby. His unit had now become a camp hospital and was on the southern foot of the Kokoda trail. For months numbers of sick and wounded casualties passed through the unit.

When the 2/5th AGH came to Port Moresby he was transferred there and rated as a specialist physician, later moving to Lae and elevated to rank of Major at a casualty clearing station. After 3 years in New Guinea he was evacuated to Heidelberg to be treated for malaria and beri beri. During this 6 months he obtained his degree of MD having studied in his tent in New Guinea. Returning to Port Moresby and the 2/5th AGH he spent a further few months there. There followed months of intensive work caring for medical and surgical problems, followed by a period developing a medical service at a point called “Bulldog" at 6,000 feet in the mountains south of Lae.

In March 1944 Bill returned to Heidelberg and married Margaret Jean Bosse, a trained nurse, whom he had met at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. After a very brief honeymoon he returned to New Guinea and the 2/6th AGH on the tableland, and from there to North Borneo. With the sudden capitulation of the Japanese he was appointed as physician to the hospital ship Manunda to go to Singapore. He was part of the first medical team to visit Changi gaol. They “sorted out” the POWs, arranging for those in very poor health to be flown home to Australia. The ship then sailed to Sumatra to pick up POW nurses. During the war Billl was awarded the Commander in Chief’s Commendation card and was mentioned in despatches in December 1941 and September 1942.

On discharge from the Army in June 1946 he was awarded a Red Cross Travelling Scholarship. With his wife, Margaret, he spent a year in Leeds studying morbid anatomy under Professor Matthew Stewart, and clinical medicine with Professor R E Tunbridge. During this year he obtained the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP).

In 1947 he was appointed senior lecturer in pathology at Melbourne University working under the guidance of Professor Peter MacCallum. During this time the large number of post-war students stretched the resources of the department, which was occupied almost wholly in teaching with few other resources.

During 1948 to 1951 he was appointed Honorary Physician to out-patients at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and was the first Physician appointed to the Royal Women’s Hospital, remaining there until appointed to in-patients at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Bill was a wonderful teacher, remembered with affection by generations of medical students and graduates.

In 1952 he commenced private practice as a Consulting Physician, combining the demanding hours of a busy private practice with continuing honorary service at the Royal Melbourne and Royal Women’s Hospitals. In 1972 he retired from private practice and joined the staff at the Royal Melbourne Hospital Pathology Department with a special brief for teaching morbid anatomy, while continuing as a physician to in-patients. For many years the 12 noon post mortem teaching session with Bill Rose was the highlight of the day for medical students and resident doctors. In 1982 he retired aged 65 years. In retirement he served for several years on the Medical Services Committee of Enquiry.

Bill was a devoted family man, taking great pleasure in the lives of his three daughters. Catherine studied Medicine at Melbourne University, and even spent three months as Bill’s last Medical Registrar at RMH in 1977. She is married to Peter Shaw, a physician and member of the College, and has five children. Alison studied Agricultural Science at Melbourne University, and is married to Richard Stawell, an ophthalmologist. They have three daughters. Elizabeth studied Medicine at Monash University, and is an ENT surgeon.

Bill was a kindly man who loved his patients and his medicine almost before anything else in his life. He was of the generation who gave honorary service to our large public hospitals. There were many sleepless nights especially when he was physician to the Royal Women’s Hospital. There were also home-visits from his consulting practice. Saturday mornings were spent visiting house-bound elderly people and often a small daughter accompanied him on these excursions. Many of these patients became friends of all the family.

Bill had been an active gardener at home whilst a school boy, growing vegetables during the Depression years. On vacation in 1st year medicine he pruned at Burnley Horticultural College and “earned himself a few bob”, and this love of gardening was lifelong. He enjoyed growing the family vegetables in his large home garden in Mont Albert, where the well-tended soil grew the best white onions, broccoli and carrots. The family also owned a former apple orchard at The Basin in the Dandenongs where Bill later grew proteas and leucodendrons in his retirement, and still maintained a large vegetable garden.

Throughout his lifetime he was an active member of the Presbyterian Church, and later the Uniting Church of Australia. He served for many years on committees of St Andrew’s Hospital and of the Welfare Organizations of the Victorian Assembly. He was Sunday School Superintendent and Session Clerk for years at St Andrew’s Church, Box Hill, and later in West Hawthorn.

Bill led an active life for many years in retirement, until developing a bone marrow dysplasia which slowed down his physical activities. However he remained mentally active, catching up on decades of missed reading and keeping involved in his family’s activities, with immense support from his wife Margaret.