Dr Edward MacMahon CBE

Edward MacMahon CBE (1904–1987), surgeon, studied medicine at the University of Sydney and completed his residency at the Sydney Hospital. In 1929 he went to London on the Orient Line's Orama as the ship's surgeon. Having obtained a fellowship with the Royal College of Surgeons, he worked at the Woolwich War Memorial Hospital, learning from the eminent surgeon Lawrence Abel. In 1933 he returned to Sydney to take up an appointment at St Vincent's Hospital. Over his career he was also senior honorary consultant general surgeon at Lewisham and the Mater Misericordiae hospital on the North Shore, where he frequently operated on the poor on Friday nights and was much-loved by the resident Sisters of Mercy. MacMahon had a special interest in operating on cancers, one of his friends recalling that 'he had a special ability to keep out of trouble surgically, with an uncanny sense of how far matters could be taken safely in a given case'. He was made a CBE for his services to medicine in 1965. MacMahon was also interested in art, and was friends with Sir William Dobell, a former patient, who painted a portrait of him in 1959.