Geoffrey Campbell Middleton was born in Sydney, son of Yelverton Middleton, a chartered accountant, and Bessie Middleton née Adrian. He attended. North Sydney Boys’ High School, achieving the Leaving Certificate with honours in Latin and chemistry. He gained a scholarship to attend the University of Sydney and graduated in medicine in 1937. He received numerous honours and distinctions including the Norton Manning prize for psychiatry in final year. He served as JRMO at Sydney Hospital and Prince Henry Hospital (PHH) and SRMO at PHH 1937-38. In 1939 he married Margaret McKillop, a nursing sister at Prince Henry. In 1940 he obtained his MRACP, and later, in 1974, Fellowship.

In 1939 Dr Middleton set up practice as a GP at Culcairn, a small town between Wagga and Albury in southern NSW. For 22 years 1939-61 he conducted his practice at Culcairn, providing medical services to the town and the surrounding districts. During the war he served as an honorary captain in the army and was often called upon to help service personnel travelling by train to Sydney or Melbourne. His service to his community went beyond medicine. In order to ensure that the town had a reliable supply of basic building materials, he bought the local brickworks. Both Dr Middleton and his wife were involved in many activities including the expansion of hospital services, starting the Scouting and Guiding movement, and encouraging plans to beautify the town with trees and gardens.

From 1957-63 he visited Ceduna in South Australia where for two or three weeks a year he would relieve the hard working Dr Merna Mueller of the Flying Medical Service (FMS). Dr Middleton sought no recompense for this activity but viewed it as an opportunity to provide a service while allowing Dr Mueller to take a well-earned rest. A sense of adventure also prevailed as his work with the FMS gave him the opportunity to treat patients in such far flung places as Coober Pedy, Tarcoola and Cook in outback SA.

Dr Middleton moved back to Sydney in 1961 and into ‘semi-retirement’. This mode did not prevail for long as he undertook locum work around Sydney and in towns throughout NSW. In l964 at the age of 50 he served as medical officer at Macquarie Island in the Australian Antarctic Territory. He was the oldest person to serve in this capacity. During his stay at Macquarie Island Dr Middleton broke his wrist while skiing and without the benefit of anaesthetic he supervised the officer in charge, the carpenter and the biologist as they set his arm in plaster. In 1971 and 1974 with the Antarctic Division again desperate for doctors, he served as medical officer at Mawson base and Macquarie Island base. He resumed locum work around Sydney and for many years worked for Drs Storey and Moffitt’s practice in Artarmon. In 1984 at the age of 70 he retired from medicine after five
years of part-time work with the Defence Recruiting office.

Dr Middleton ‘s distinguished career was not limited to medicine. He had an enquiring mind and he read and researched extensively. He became very involved in genealogy and he documented his work. His writings on the Middleton and Tucker families, pioneers of the Hunter Valley, became well known in genealogical circles.