William Robert Macfarlane Drew, son of William Hughes Drew, a Sydney solicitor, and Ethel (nee Macfarlane), formerly of Winnipeg, Canada was born in Sydney on 4th October 1907. He was educated at Sydney Grammar School. After graduating in Medicine in the University of Sydney in 1930 he was a resident at Sydney Hospital during 1930 then joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1931 serving in India from 1932-1937 where he acquired great experience in tropical medicine. This young recruit was to eventually become Lt-Gen Sir Robert Drew, Director-General Army Medical Services, the top medical position in the British Army.

His war service soon showed initiative. He arrived in France in April 1940 as Deputy Assistant Director of Medical Services (DADMS) 2nd British Corps. The Corps was in the ‘black country’ – coalmines and foundries – the Bethune/Lille area of northern France when the German onslaught began. The corps made its way towards Dunkirk when the evacuation was in full swing. Almost there, they were ordered back to Lille again. The retreat resumed and they came under heavy shellfire. Drew stood at a crossroad, directing the troops. The 2nd Corps had already embarked and Major Drew and the Director of Medical Services (DMS) had been left behind. Somehow, at night, they managed to get through a German artillery barrage and find 1st Corps Headquarters, 10 miles from Dunkirk. On 2 June they left Dunkirk aboard a Royal Navy destroyer. The ship was shelled, bombed and mined but returned safely to England. Drew was awarded the OBE (military) in the first honour list of WWII for rallying and organising the troops and for his leadership during the evacuation.

After a command of a field ambulance in the 4th British Division he was later given the task of training all the Army's medical officers in tropical diseases in batches of 50 per fortnight at Millbank, London. He also acted as general practitioner at the War Office cabinet, including giving vaccinations and inoculations for Churchill, Eden and the others.

Soon after the war Colonel Drew was seconded for five years to the post of Professor of Medicine, University of Baghdad, Iraq. His clinical and teaching abilities won him widespread acclaim and acknowledgment. He was Hon Physician to king Faisal the Second, to the royal household, Prime Minister and senior officials. His reputation spread through the Middle East and he raised the quality and standard of undergraduate education. For his services he was awarded the honours of Commander of the Order of El Rafidain of Iraq, and the CBE in 1952. After leaving Iraq, he had a sabbatical year at the Massachusetts General hospital in Boston and absorbed the clinical acumen of the medical giants while contributing to the teaching in tropical medicine.

Between 1957 and 1961 he was Consulting Physician to the British Army. Then followed appointments as Commandant Royal Army Medical College and DMS, British Army of the Rhine. In 1965 he was appointed Director-General Army Medical Services (DGAMS) and was knighted. He was appointed Hon Physician to the Queen and was on emergency duties at Palace functions. Drew remains the highest-ranking product of the Sydney University Regiment.

On his retirement from the British Army in 1970 Drew took up the position of deputy-director of the British Postgraduate Medical Foundation. In this post he was able to assist overseas doctors, and especially Australian graduates coming to London for further training.

He became a Councillor and Vice-President of the Royal College of Physicians of London and was elected to Fellowship of the Edinburgh, Australasian and Canadian Colleges. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, a rare honour for a physician. He also held high office in the Royal Society of Medicine, the Medical Society of London, and the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. He was a member of the committee of management of the Royal Postgraduate Medical School and a freeman of the city of London.

His contributions to medical literature were wide-ranging in many aspects of tropical medicine, protozoal and helminthic infections, cholera, plague, rickettsial infections, and the effects of extreme heat on the human body. His major literary work was to conceive and edit Commissioned Officers in the Medical Services of the British Army 1660-1960, London, Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1968, known as Drew’s Roll.

In 1934 he married Dorothy Dakingsmith and this proved to be a long mutually supportive happy union. Their son Christopher was a doctor. Twin daughters died in infancy and their daughter Joanne predeceased them. Dorothy and ‘Bob’ returned to live in Sydney at Darling Point but she died in 1990. Bob survived her by only a year.

Bob Drew enjoyed his life in Sydney. He was a member of the Australian Club and the Royal Sydney Golf Club. He developed a close interest in antique silver and attended the auctions. He took a keen interest in the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. My own association with him was in the later period of WWII, 1944-5, at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in 1946-7 and when he was involved with the British Postgraduate Medical Foundation. I found that he had tremendous energy and enthusiasm for whatever interested him at the time, enjoying a wide range of interests particularly in clinical medicine and teaching, and helping many young doctors planning their careers. He was tall, thin, dapper, well dressed and had a lively bright intelligence. He was at home with the ordinary citizen as with leaders in politics, the services and royalty. His outlook was conservative and he was certainly part of the ‘establishment’ but he was a caring compassionate man and always first and foremost a doctor. As a doctor his army career was exceptional and he brought to it qualities of leadership, devotion and tolerance.