Ross Hawker was born at Quirindi, a pastoral and agricultural centre, in the central north of New South Wales. The Hawkers were a longstanding and pioneering family in the district. His grandfather, William Hawker, had founded the Quirindi Advocate, a newspaper which was to run for more than a century. Ross’ father, Harold Wilson Hawker, in turn became the part owner and editor of the Advocate.

After primary schooling at Quirindi State School, he attended Quirindi High School where he passed the New South Wales Intermediate Examination after three years’ study. Planning for a career in medicine, he repeated his Intermediate year, studying French to satisfy the curriculum requirements of a non-English language, needed for eventual matriculation in medicine. Even as a boy and teenager, he was a compassionate person. He was also a keen gardener and his family recalls a story which exemplified his kindness and respect for living creatures. He once inadvertently injured a frog whilst digging in the garden. He took the injured creature inside, meticulously set its leg, and kept the frog safe until it had convalesced and could be liberated.

In 1938, he won a NSW State Scholarship to Hurlstone Agricultural College, at Glenfield, then an outer western suburb of Sydney. He was an exceptional student at that exceptional school. He was a champion rifle shot and tennis player and was elected captain of tennis and school captain. Tennis was a sport at which he was to excel throughout his life. He won a Shell Exhibition, topping the State in his agricultural studies; and matriculated to the University of Sydney.

He studied medicine in the accelerated course commencing in the dark days of 1941. At the end of that year (7th December 1941) the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour engulfed the Pacific in World War II. He continued his interests in rifle shooting and tennis at University, and led a full and vigorous undergraduate life. He enlisted with the Sydney University Regiment, wearing its black enamelled insignia faced with a red felt background. He was always an exact and meticulous person, and delighted in the logic and self-discipline of card games. As an undergraduate he was a champion poker player. Former colleagues who were medical students recall that his winnings at poker supplemented his otherwise meagre student allowance. In later life, after he was made a member of the prestigious Edinburgh Magic Circle, his skill as a conjurer and magician and his deftness with cards were such that he never played for money after that time.

His undergraduate medical studies were based at Sydney’s leading hospitals. His clinical studies were centred at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children at Camperdown; and King George V Hospital for Mothers and Babies. In addition, he embarked on a major volunteer research project in the Department of Physiology at Sydney University. It was an exceptional thing for a medical student to devote such energy to voluntary research studies. Ross Hawker worked for three years on the effects of Vitamin B6 on reproduction in both males and females. His first published paper, published in the Australian Journal of Experimental Biology and Medical Science (1946; 14: 251), summarised his experimental findings. It was entitled, “A note on the effect of nicotinic acid on the growth of the testes and seminal vesicles in immature male rats”. His clinical studies on vitamin deficiency in women, and its relationship to hypomenorrhoea and dysmenorrhoea, were published in the Medical Journal of Australia (1946; 1: 872), under the title, ‘Studies in nicotinic acid’. They were to be the forerunners of more than 50 books, book chapters and scholarly research papers which he published in the field of endocrinology.

On 13 May 1944, whilst still a medical student, Ross married Ailsa Boyd (b. 1925), a trainee draftsperson who was awaiting entry to a nursing course in Sydney. Ailsa was to be his lifelong closest friend, companion, proofreader and partner in the world of medicine and academia, research physiology, travel and the arts. In the time interval between the final medical examinations (in 1945) and the day of graduation, tragedy struck that graduation year at the University of Sydney. Some seven members of the class of graduand doctors hired a boat, the Robin May, on the Hawkesbury River to travel from Newcastle to Sydney. She was wrecked in a storm with only one survivor (Ian Collins FRACP). Six of the graduating doctors, all friends of Ross, were drowned. Five years later, in 1950, he was to give the proceeds of his first book, ‘Synopsis of Endocrinology’, to the Robin May Fund established to perpetuate their memory.

Ross Hawker was appointed to the post of Quarantine Medical Officer within the Commonwealth Health Department based in Brisbane in July 1946. He worked in this position until March 1950. His duties were not onerous. He had taken the position so as to afford him time to write a textbook of physiology and to teach in this subject – a discipline to which he was already committed for life. He was appointed lecturer in physiology at the University of Queensland in1950. He immediately embarked on research studies of antidiuretic hormone (ADH); and established a pioneering assay to measure this crucial hormone which determines the rate of urine flow and hence the concentration of blood. For his studies on ADH he was awarded the second Doctorate of Medicine of the University of Queensland.

Hawker’s published work and his international reputation for endocrine research led to an appointment as the Scientific Officer at the UK Medical Research Council’s Clinical Endocrinology Research Unit at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Ross and Ailsa, with their two children Vicki and Francis, lived in Edinburgh for the ensuing three years. His work at the unit was focussed upon refining the assays by which the two hormones of the posterior pituitary gland – vasopressin and oxytocin – could be identified and measured. Ross Hawker’s work at the unit resulted in ten papers in the world’s leading medical literature. One of these papers, published in Nature in 1957 (Nature 1957; 180: 343), described a variant of oxytocin. During his time in Edinburgh, Ross Hawker discovered that antidiuretic hormone was increased in the blood of animals with pre-eclampsia and eclampsia (toxaemia) compared with that in normal pregnancy. For this work, his alma mater, the University of Sydney, awarded him the degree of Doctor of Medicine, an accolade bestowed upon him in 1956.

Professor Hawker felt passionately about research; and from the perspective of his own career, was an advocate for the broadening of opportunities for medical students and doctors who would wish to develop a research component in their own clinical and scientific lives.

As Professor of Physiology, Ross Hawker established practical and popular postgraduate courses in physiology, directed particularly at recent medical graduates who were studying for the difficult Part One Examinations for the RACS, the RACP and the RCOG. His reputation as a postgraduate teacher in physiology extended to international shores. In 1958 he was invited as the extra-mural lecturer at the National University of Singapore; and thereafter was a paid invited guest as Visiting Professor every year from 1958 until 1995. He was initially sponsored under the Colombo plan. From 1959 he was a regular invited guest lecturer in the USA, South America, the UK, Europe and Asia. His enthusiasm and standing led to his being appointed Examiner in Physiology for the RACS and for the Faculty of Anaesthetists, a separate division within it. He became FRACP in 1962, and was awarded honorary Fellowships of the RACS in 1973, and the then Faculty of Anaesthetists of the RACS in 1978

He worked indefatigably in the collegiate world of physiology, and was created a Foundation Member of the Australian Biochemical Society, a member of the Australian Physiological Society, and the Australian Society for Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists. He was appointed as a Member of Council of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. Together with Professor Alf Steinbeck FRACP, he was a founder of the Endocrine Society of Australia. He retired from full-time University teaching and research on 21st March 1983, his 62nd birthday.

His extracurricular interests included ballet and the arts, tennis and conjuring. Professor Hawker served as the President of the Queensland Ballet Company for three years (from 1962) and through this medium indirectly brought much fulfilment to dancers and audiences alike. He was also known for his perpetual youthful physiognomy and his fitness. When he was appointed as chief lecturer at the University of Queensland, he established a tradition of a tennis club within the department of physiology. He played with great skill and enthusiasm varying over the ensuing three decades and won a World Master’s Tournament in his age bracket. His love of and proficiency at tennis continued until the year of his death.

It was however, as a magician that he is remembered by many with such admiration, outside his professional world of physiology and biological research. Ross Hawker had always enjoyed conjuring and magic. He could have taken his place in the ranks of professional poker players and his skill at cards was legendary. During his research appointment at the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Research Unit in Edinburgh (1950-1952), he was afforded the opportunity to be trained in the skills of conjuring. He embarked upon professional training in conjuring in Edinburgh with his usual enthusiasm and meticulous attention to detail. Thus it was in 1954 that he sat for the examination of the Edinburgh Magic Circle, and was admitted to that esteemed brotherhood, one of the leading international collegiate groups of professional magicians.

Ross Hawker is remembered as a meticulous teacher, a pioneer of endocrinological research in Australia, an outstanding sportsman and a gifted magician.