Marion Boyd Wanliss was born in Ballarat in 1896 at Longford House on a property settled in 1841 by her grandfather, TD Wanliss, who established the Star newspaper in that city. The property is now the site of Ballarat College. Her father was a solicitor in Ballarat and her mother Margaret Boyd died when her only daughter was just two years old. Her only son, Marion's brother, was killed in the First World War. Marion, although of diminutive stature, was always a courageous individualist with a fearless approach to fraud and deception, and an infectious and delightful sense of humour (as one can realise from looking at her very typical photograph accompanying this biography). She did not believe in the trappings of funeral and memorial services and bequeathed her body to the anatomy school of Melbourne University.

Marion's father remarried and Marion was sent as a boarder to Clyde Girls' School in Melbourne from 1910 to 1914. She graduated MB BS from the Melbourne University in 1921 and became a resident medical officer at the Melbourne Hospital, after which she engaged in cancer research at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute where she became a lifelong friend of Frank MacFarlane Burnett and his first wife, Linda. She then travelled to London and obtained her MRCP in 1927 and also did some postgraduate work in Vienna before returning to Australia, where she obtained her MD at Melbourne and later her MRACP in 1938. In 1954 she obtained her FRACP.

Dr Wanliss was an excellent physician and conducted a large private practice both from her home in Camberwell (where, as her former patients recall, she would willingly visit them in their homes on request) and also a busy private consulting practice from rooms in Collins Street. She became a respected honorary physician to the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, beginning as an outpatients physician and latterly as a senior inpatients physician. She was also medical officer to Fintona Girls' Grammar School and to the Melbourne Church of England Girls' Grammar School.

She had a passion for conservation and Australian wildlife and in the early 1950s, after presenting a particularly vehement paper at the Lyceum Club, Melbourne, concerning the indiscriminate slaughter of kangaroos, Marion formed the Native Fauna Conservation Society and was its hard-working secretary and prime mover until the late seventies. The late Jock Marshall, professor of zoology at Monash University, was its first president.

The society became large, active, prestigious and well-endowed. Dr Wanliss conducted the "Marion Wanliss Conservation Camps" for young people. These were based at Glen Ewart, near the township of Launching Place. Here her tireless enthusiasm and example was reflected in her young protégés, many of whom have subsequently distinguished themselves in the field of conservation research and management. She led them on nature study tours into the bush, arranged tree plantings and informative picture shows and meetings, conducted and often cooked for the camps and was their honorary medical officer on many occasions. Properties on the Upper Yarra originally entrusted to the Native Fauna Conservation Society during her term of office are now under the control of other conservation societies.

Dr Wanliss had a special aptitude for making and keeping a wide selection of friends, and the faculty of inspiring faith and confidence in her patients. In fact, it is said that some reported that, "she had only to walk through the door and they felt better!" Two cottages at Leith Park Eltham Old Colonists Association have been named in her honour.