Neil Orr was born on 19 October 1919 on a property called “St Helens” in Toowoomba, Queensland, the only child of Scottish immigrants. Neil attended school at Toowoomba Grammar and studied medicine at the University of Sydney. At university, he stayed at Wesley College, where he was in the rowing team.
Neil graduated in 1944 and served his internship at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney. He then set sail for England as a ship’s surgeon on the HMS Bellerophon, which stopped on the way at Batavia to collect the Dutch gold that had been sent there for safety at the beginning of the First World War. He arrived in England in 1947, where he worked at several hospitals, including Hillingdon Hospital, Uxbridge, where he undertook most of his surgical training. In 1960, he was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons.
