Edward Jenkins was the son of Dr RL Jenkins and was born in Tamworth, NSW. His father practised medicine but became a pastoralist and was interested in breeding bloodstock. He made his home in a stately mansion, ‘Nepean Towers’, at Douglas Park near Camden. Here Edward grew up, receiving his education first at Macquarie Fields School and later at The King’s School, Parramatta, where he became captain of the School.

In 1874 (before the foundation of the Sydney Medical School) he went to Trinity College, Oxford, where he studied and graduated in natural science. Later he worked in London at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and gained Membership of the Royal College of Physicians of London. In 1883 he returned to Sydney and was appointed resident medical officer at the Prince Alfred Hospital, a year later succeeding R Scot Skirving as the medical superintendent. At this time he probably held the highest medical and cultural qualifications of any doctor in Sydney. After two years he entered into private practice and was appointed honorary physician to the Sydney Hospital in 1892, an appointment he held until 1914. During this period he also held an appointment at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children.

He had a good reputation as a clinical bedside teacher rather than as a lecturer, for he was a quiet man. He took part in general medical affairs, and for some years was a member of the NSW Medical Board and was president of the NSW branch of the British Medical Association. In his later years he became involved in the practice of anaesthesia and was almost fully and exclusively engaged in this work with Sir Alexander MacCormick to whom he was the preferred anaesthetist. The only anaesthetic he used was ether, usually administered by the ‘open’ method, occasionally by one of the vaporising machines. Much of this work was done for formidable surgery and in far from ideal surroundings, but he had the proper equable temperament to cope with it and MacCormick had the greatest faith in him. The combination lasted until MacCormick retired in 1932, when both were in their mid-seventies.

He had a keen, quiet sense of humour, a mind rich in knowledge of the classics and of natural science and a love of literature. He was always a quiet, unassuming and lovable person, known generally as ‘Teddy’. His consulting rooms were in the back of ‘Craignish’, a building owned by MacCormick, and there he kept every number of Punch and many natural treasures. His home was for years ‘Lindesay’, the historical mansion at Darling Point. This was regarded rather as evidence of his wife’s extravagance than of personal wealth, for he commonly had financial anxieties. His daughter Judith cared for him gently in his old age, and he had two sons, neither of whom studied medicine. In his later years he suffered the restrictions of a failing heart and he died quietly at his desk.