William Kenneth (Ken) Manning was born in Gunnedah NSW on 15 September 1914. His parents William and Martha were both born into and committed to rural life in north western NSW. In due course Ken was himself to marry a grazier’s daughter – Olivia Manuel, and have two children, a daughter and a son.

Ken was educated at Tamworth High School and the University of Sydney graduating MBBS in 1939. After residency training at Sydney Hospital and Prince Henry (‘The Coast’) Hospital he joined the 2nd AIF in 1941. This was to be the beginning of a military/medical career in Australia, the Middle East and New Guinea with his leaving the service with the rank of major.

On leaving the army in 1946 he began a long association with the Repatriation General Hospital at Concord, Sydney. He was a medical officer in 1947 and subsequently specialist physician and assistant superintendant. During those years he became a Member of the College in 1948 and obtained by examination the Diploma of the Institute of Hospital Administrators of the University of NSW in 1966. He left the Repatriation Hospital in 1962 and was a physician member of the NSW Health Commission from 1963-77 with an appointment to the Waterfall Sanatorium in NSW.

A member of his hospital staff at Concord wrote of him that he was “a good boss, firm but fair, and I learnt much from him”. His special interest at that time was the management of bleeding peptic ulcer – a field of medicine which would inevitably lead to his being involved in the controversy of blood replacement. “He believed firmly in the frugal (if any) use of blood transfusion”, and published his results in the MJA in 1955 and in 1960.

He is remembered as a ‘son of the soil’, with a much admired service to his country through his active military service and by his subsequent clinical and administrative duties at the military hospital in Sydney.