Charles George McDonald
Charles George McDonald (1892–1970) was an Australian physician, army officer and academic. He specialized in tuberculosis and served as a lieutenant colonel in the Australian Imperial Force during the Second World War, with campaigns in Greece and Palestine. After the war, he moved into academia and eventually became Chancellor of the University of Sydney from 1964 to 1969, the first Catholic to hold the post.
Early life and education
McDonald was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, the youngest of five sons of Irish immigrant William McDonald and Australian Mary Slattery. He attended preparatory schools in Singleton and, after his family moved to Sydney, Sydney Boys High School, where he helped found the school magazine Record and served as Senior Prefect. He studied medicine at the University of Sydney, where he edited the Sydney University Medical Journal and led the Medical Society. He graduated in 1916.
Medical career and tuberculosis work
McDonald worked as Assistant-Editor of the Medical Journal of Australia and published many papers on tuberculosis. From 1920 he was honorary assistant-physician in the tuberculosis clinic at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, later serving on its board (1964–70) and practicing medicine with Professor A. E. Mills on Macquarie Street. He earned a Master of Surgery in 1928.
His tuberculosis work included the military anti-tuberculosis dispensary at Randwick and he served as an honorary advisor to the Australian Red Cross Society and as an examiner for admissions to the Queen Victoria Homes for Consumptives. In 1938 he co-founded the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and held several leadership roles there. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London) in 1956 and served as editor-in-chief of the Australasian Annals of Medicine.
Military service
McDonald began his military career as a captain in the Australian Imperial Force in 1918 and moved to the Officers’ Reserve in 1919. In the Second World War, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1940 and served in Greece, Crete, Palestine and Gaza from 1941 to 1942. He returned to Sydney on 27 February 1943, having been mentioned in despatches.
Academic leadership and public service
He lectured in Clinical Medicine at the University of Sydney from 1938, but the war paused his teaching. He resumed teaching in 1943 and continued until 1952. McDonald joined the University Senate in 1942, became Deputy-Chancellor in 1953, and served as Chancellor from 1964 to 1969. He was the university’s first Catholic Chancellor. He also served as a trustee of the Public Library of New South Wales and as chairman of Sancta Sophia College Council.
Catholic faith and honors
A devoted Catholic, McDonald was made a Knight Commander of the Papal Order of St. Gregory the Great (KCSG) in 1960. He helped found the Newman Association of Catholic Graduates and helped establish the Catholic Medical Guild of St Luke. He was a close friend of Cardinal Norman Thomas Gilroy, Archbishop of Sydney. His secular honors included Commander of the British Empire (1951), Knight Bachelor (1962), and Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire and the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1970. He was also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London) and Editor-in-chief of the Australasian Annals of Medicine.
Family
McDonald married Elsie Isobel Hosie in 1919. They had four sons and a daughter. One son, Geoffrey, was Dux of Riverview College in 1937 and later became President of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians; another son, John, became a paediatrician; and another son, Charles, became a Jesuit priest.
Death
Sir Charles McDonald died on 23 April 1970 in Sydney, aged 78.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 17:55 (CET).