Richard Pellew was born in 1911 at Balaklava in South Australia, where his father, Leonard James Pellew practised as a surgeon, largely self-taught. His elder brother, Leonard, also became a surgeon, while Richard developed a complementary interest in general medicine. After his schooling at St Peter's College he studied at the University of Adelaide, where his sporting interests led him to inclusion in the state baseball team. Postgraduate studies began in 1935 at the Royal Adelaide Hospital as junior and then senior resident medical officer. In London he took his MRCP examination in 1937. As medical registrar in Westminister Hospital the following year he was exposed to neurology and pathology and these remained an important interest, although he never deviated from working as a general physician.

War service in the Royal Army Medical Corps extended from 1940 to 1944, taking him to the Middle East, especially Syria, where he served as specialist physician to the 2nd/lst Australian General Hospital, and later to the 105th Australian Military Hospital, Adelaide, as lieutenant-colonel. After the war his time was divided between private practice honorary work at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in general medicine. He was a senior visiting physician when he died in his sixty-fifth year.

Dick Pellew enjoyed teaching at the bedside and was appreciated for his commonsense attitude to medical problems. In the ward he communicated an easy manner and a generous concern to patients and staff. With administrators he bristled as he saw his students' work fragmented by the development of specialties and over-organised teaching methods. Between 1948 and 1955 he was visiting medical officer to the infectious diseases wards, and during that time a large epidemic of poliomyelitis occurred. Pellew's study of borderline cases produced two papers: 'A clinical description of a disease resembling poliomyelitis seen in Adelaide 1949-51' (Med Aust, 1951, 1, 944-6), and 'Further investigations on a disease resembling poliomyelitis seen in Adelaide'.(RAA Pellew & JAR Miles, Med J Aust, 1955, 2, 480-2.)

His wife Winifred Ruth, daughter of Dr F S Hone of Adelaide, and his son Richard, a graduate in agricultural science, survived him after his tragic death from head injuries sustained in an accident in his home in 1976.