Throughout his life Sir Charles McDonald had the drive and sense of purpose for leadership, and he would have achieved this whatever profession he had chosen. Initially this must have seemed to him a far off dream. He was born in Newcastle. His father was a farmer and later a hotel proprietor, and Charles was one of eleven children and the youngest of five sons. The foremost family concern was the education of their children, and his mother was the dominant figure. She was a small, tough woman of Irish parentage with a passion for learning and an obsession for education. Young Charles (‘CG’) had the intellect, vision, scholarship and industry to respond to the full. He enjoyed good health and vigour, deep religious conviction and strong family ties. He attended primary school in Singleton, and won a scholarship to Sydney High School in 1907.

He quickly excelled at lessons, and developed literary tastes and a talent for writing. He was uninterested in sports. He was the first editor of the school magazine, showed a keen interest in debating, and later became a senior prefect and the first captain of the school. He matriculated with honours in English, Latin, French and German and entered the faculty of medicine at the University of Sydney in 1911 after some initial indecision whether to study medicine or law.

At university he continued writing, contributing verse and prose, and edited the student magazine Hermes, and later, the Sydney University Medical Journal. His early interest in literature and poetry flourished during his student days. He began buying and accumulating books, and laid the foundations of a large library. He read widely, but particularly enjoyed historical and biographical literature and the classics. He became the first leader of debate of the Sydney University Union, and a few years later was a member of the team that opposed the visitors from Oxford University Union. After graduating with credit, he was appointed in 1916 as a resident medical officer at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (RPAH).

He became house physician to Professor AE (‘Arty’) Mills who was to become his mentor and hero. He modelled himself on Mills whose photograph was to hang above his desk in his consulting rooms. Later, Dr Mills also encouraged his interest in university affairs and was one of his nominees for the university senate. From 1917 to 1920 he served with the Australian Imperial Force in an Army hospital, and was involved with the care of tuberculous patients. He then entered general practice.

The foundation for his practical knowledge of internal medicine was laid during his period as a busy general practitioner at Hurstville, and those years were regarded by him as a valuable, indeed essential, part of training for future consultant medicine. It needs to be remembered that he achieved great eminence as a physician, and reached the highest pinnacle of his profession without any higher degree. He was not involved in research, he did not obtain an MD degree, and he did not seek overseas training or College diplomas. He always held reservations about academics and professors of medicine, believing that lectures and reading were poor substitutes for the hurly-burly training of general practice. When well established in consultant medicine he held the same view, tending to remain insular, and unwilling to encourage young people to go overseas for training. Although his view was the prevailing one at the time he did not foresee or visualise the changing pattern of training in advanced medicine that was to come during the next decades.

Apart from his consultant practice, which included following Mills as chief medical officer of the Mutual Life and Citizens Assurance Company Limited, his chief interests were devoted to three major areas, namely, the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, The Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and the University of Sydney.

In 1920 at the age of twenty-eight and only four years after graduation, he was appointed to RPAH as an honorary assistant physician. In 1924 he followed his lifelong friend, Dr SA Smith, as tutor in medicine and later he became clinical lecturer of the University of Sydney at RPAH. In 1928 he left Hurstville for consultant practice, initially at 147 Macquarie Street, and a year or two later in ‘Harley’ where Professor Mills and Dr SA Smith also practised, next door to the future home of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians.

He was regarded as a good lecturer, but he shone in teaching clinical medicine at the bedside. Those of us who were not allocated to his unit would stand behind his students to watch the great man in action. His teaching was direct, lucid and confident. It was, in the main, passive education but of the highest quality. He expected students to be satisfied with nothing less from him or from themselves. ‘He had a silver tongue and a golden mind. He spun word pictures of disease, the like of which has never been committed to the books’ (John Read). In 1933 he was elevated to honorary physician at RPAH. His wide clinical experience, his industry and personal interest and humanity towards his patients made him one of the outstanding clinicians ever produced by RPAH.

His service in the Second World War in the 2/6 Australian General Hospital as lieutenant-colonel, and officer in charge of the medical division, included the evacuation from Greece and Crete, and responsibility for the embarkation of a large group of nurses onto a destroyer and escape to Crete and Alexandria. In 1943 he resumed teaching and clinical work after his release from the Army was successfully sought by the University of Sydney. Then followed the extraordinary, overcrowded university years, when there was no restriction on entry into medicine by ex-servicemen and women, and when his energy and wisdom were to be tested to the full.

He was a member of the Association of Physicians of Australasia which was founded in 1930, and was the forerunner of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He was a foundation Fellow of the College and member of the first council and executive committee. For the next twenty-eight years he held every important office in the College, and served on all the main sub-committees. He succeeded Dr Allan Walker as honorary secretary (1944-48); was vice-president (1948-50); censor-in-chief (1950-54); and president (1954-56). He served on council continuously from 1938 until 1962.

He imposed his authority and guidance on the path of the new College with great distinction. His capacity for debate, his lively wit, his relish of controversy and his natural leadership made him a giant figure. He had colleagues who were both critical and even antagonistic, holding views at times quite different from his own. They tended to be his juniors, consultant physicians who had studied overseas, had postgraduate degrees, and were becoming sub-specialists. Sir Charles was essentially a generalist, with a deep conviction that clinical medicine must be based on a wide experience in all fields. In recognition of his contribution to medicine he was elected to Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1956.

He was deeply devoted to the University of Sydney. Elected a fellow of the senate in 1942 he continued this association until his death in 1970. He served as Deputy Chancellor, and became Chancellor in December 1964. This appointment was warmly welcomed within both the University and his own profession. ‘He was liked for his courtesy and friendliness, respected for his scholarship, and he brought special gifts to this post. He held an honoured place in the community, was a good ambassador, sagacious negotiator, and avoided the forthright expression of opinion he had exercised in the senate’ (Sir Edward Ford). He loved the University, the Gothic architecture, the Great Hall, the ceremonial, the literary treasures, and the learning. It is perhaps ironic that, despite his critical attitude to medical academia, he became immersed in university life as its head. He was at his best at the conferring of degrees, and on the last occasion when he was mortally ill, his address to medical graduates was read by the Deputy Chancellor. He told them ‘you will learn medicine and learn the wise practice of it only if you listen to your patients, are sympathetic with them, if you study their anxieties and hopes, if you have a deep sense of devotion to your vocation’.

Sir Charles’s personal and domestic life was as happy and successful as his professional one. He married Miss Elsie Hosie in October 1919, and they had four sons and one daughter. The eldest, Geoffrey, followed his father by graduating in medicine, becoming a physician on the staff of RPAH, and president of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians, a unique father-son double. Philip, an arts graduate, became a public servant in Canberra, John a medical graduate and paediatrician on the staff of the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Molly graduated in arts and social studies, and Charles became a Jesuit priest and teacher. The marriage was one of mutual warmth and devotion.

CG was a deeply religious man, a distinguished member of the Catholic Church and recipient of its highest papal honour, Knight Commander of the Order of St Gregory. His outlook was ecumenical and he took part in the annual university service at St Andrew’s Cathedral, participating by reading a lesson. He received many honours, which included Companion of the Order of the British Empire in 1951, Knight Bachelor in 1962, and Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1970. He was also a trustee of the then Public Library of New South Wales, so continuing his profound interest in literature and the humanities.

However, the great man was also human. CG was a chain smoker, preferring Capstan cigarettes smoked in a holder. Despite the profession’s present attitude to smoking this did not prevent him living for seventy-eight years. He enjoyed horse-racing with his colleague SA Smith. They would meet each Saturday morning with HM Rennie and Miss Dorothy Roseby, honorary secretary and secretary respectively, at the College building to discuss College affairs and problems. Before long the topic would turn to the likely winners at Randwick that afternoon. SA Smith would go off to the races, and CG would go home and listen on the radio. He was a member of the Australian Club and Royal Sydney Golf Club but rarely played golf. He was a familiar figure with his homburg on his head driving his old Buick, which he did continuously for a period of thirty-two years. He believed in the old car as he believed in all the old traditions and virtues.

His favourite poet was Robert Browning. One can imagine CG, in his prime, rising early, the voice of Pippa singing in his ears –

"The year’s at the spring,
The day’s at the morn’
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in his heaven -
All’s right with the world!