Percy Alan Earnshaw, paediatrician, was born in Brisbane on 17 October 1893 and spent the first few years of his life at Buderim, Qld. He was the eldest son of William Earnshaw, later Chief Inspector of Schools in Queensland, and his wife Kate Louise Gaylard. Alan Earnshaw attended Maryborough Central School for Boys (1901-06) and Maryborough Grammar School (1907). In 1907, after being awarded a State Scholarship he was educated at Brisbane Grammar School. In 1912 he was admitted to the Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney from where he graduated MB ChM in November 1916.

He was appointed house surgeon, Sydney Hospital for the last six months of 1916 and was a resident medical officer at the Brisbane Hospital until May 1917 when he enlisted as a captain in the 1st AIF. After two months initial training with the 6th AGH, Kangaroo Point, Brisbane he was transferred to Sydney in July 1917. By the end of 1917 he was on active duty in France as regimental medical officer to the 55th Battalion, 5th Division, AIF. In March 1918 Alan Earnshaw received injuries from enemy shelling and poison gas which resulted in his evacuation to a British Red Cross Hospital at Boulogne and a period of convalescence in England. He returned to France in June 1918 where he remained as a medical officer to a field ambulance unit in France and Belgium until early 1919.

In 1919 he went to England to gain further hospital experience. Following an initial appointment as junior house surgeon, he subsequently became junior and senior house physician at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London 1919-21. It was in London that his experience in the care of children under the supervision of Sir Frederic Still, Robert Hutchinson and Hugh Thursfield, revered names in British paediatrics, gained strength. After further experience in paediatrics in the West London Hospital he gained further postgraduate experience in Edinburgh in 1922 where he was influenced by John Thomson, the doyen of Scottish paediatrics at that time.

On his return to Brisbane in 1923 the state of specialism was such that he entered general practice but essentially confined his practice to children making him one of Brisbane's first paediatricians. This led to his appointment as honorary physician to outpatients, Hospital for Sick Children, Brisbane in 1923, a position he held until 1931. From 1923 to 1938 he was appointed honorary medical officer to the West End and Herschel Street Baby Clinics to the fledgling Infant Welfare Service, directed by Dr Alfred Jefferis Turner.

The year 1931 witnessed the opening of the Mater Misericordiae Children's Hospital and the appointment of Dr Earnshaw as one of two honorary physicians to inpatients. It was in this capacity that 'P.A.' as he was affectionately known by his colleagues and friends established his reputation as an outstanding clinician over the next thirty years until his retirement from active hospital practice in 1961. Even with the exigencies of staff difficulties on outbreak of World War II when Dr Earnshaw remained the only senior paediatrician at the Hospital until 1946, he served as a major in the AAMC home service 1939-46. During his time at the hospital his unselfish clinical service, maintenance of the highest clinical standards and dedication to his specialty led to his being widely regarded as the 'father' of paediatrics in Queensland. He taught generations of medical students and resident medical officers, many of whom subsequently embarked on paediatric careers as a result of his influence. His university involvement led to his appointment as a clinical lecturer in child health, University of Queensland, in 1951-59.

His devoted service to the Mater Hospital over thirty years resulted in the accolade, 'his abiding monument is the paediatric service of the Mater Children's'. His loyalty to the Hospital earned him the gratitude and respect of the Sisters of Mercy and his colleagues. 'P.A.'s status and counsel did much to establish the Medical Advisory Board of the Mater Misericordiae Public Hospitals to which he was elected a member 1938-60. He was chairman of the Mater Clinical Society, 1944-52.

Although Dr Earnshaw had a busy clinical practice he always found time for involvement in the wider community of medicine. Elected to the Queensland branch of the British Medical Association in 1922, Dr Earnshaw gave a loyal and distinguished service to the Association for a period of fifty-seven years. A member of the Queensland Branch Council from 1937 to 1938 and again from 1960 to 1964, he was president in 1961 and 1962, was elected a fellow of the Association in 1966, an honorary life member in 1971 and vice president of the branch in 1978. He was on the Medical Fees Tribunal from 1963 to 1974 (and its chairman from 1965 to 1966) and was honorary treasurer of the branch from 1963 to 1964. He was a member of the Australian Rheumatism Council 1955-61. In 1965, he delivered the 35th Jackson Lecture entitled 'Unwept, unhonoured and unsung', dealing with an outbreak of pneumonic plague in Maryborough in 1905.

His involvement with paediatrics led to his election as vice president of the paediatric section of the Australasian Medical Congress in Adelaide in 1937 and again in Brisbane in 1950 and Melbourne in 1952. In 1949 he was appointed the foundation president of the section of paediatrics (Queensland branch of the British Medical Association). His activity in this area at a national level led to his being elected as president of the Australian College of Paediatrics in 1953-54. He was a foundation fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (and chairman of its Queensland state committee from 1962 to 1966); a member of the advisory board of the Mater Misericordiae Hospitals Board from 1946 to 1959; chairman of the Medical Committee of the Queensland Section of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) of Australia from 1958 to 1978 and its president from 1959 to 1962 (subsequently being awarded the rare honour of honorary life membership of the RFDS); a member of the Queensland Postgraduate Medical Education Committee from 1931 to 1947; and a member of the board of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Queensland from 1951 to 1959.

In 1964 Dr Earnshaw was awarded a well merited CBE for services to medicine. The Queensland branch council of the AMA recorded in its minutes that Percy Alan Earnshaw had dedicated his life to medicine, his colleagues, his patients and the community. In 1923 Dr Earnshaw married Marian Eileen Blandford, a nurse whom he met during his residence at Great Ormond Street. They had a son, John, and fours daughters, Joan, Gillian, Margaret and Annabel.