Illustrious Old Boy leaves legacy

Dr Charles Roe AM, born in Brisbane on 14 February 1919, was the eldest child of Arthur Stanley Roe, Queensland’s first Rhodes Scholar, and the eldest grandchild of Reginald Heber Roe, second Headmaster of Brisbane Grammar School from 1876 to 1909.

Like his father and grandfather, he was able, industrious and public-spirited throughout his life.

After leaving Toowong State School on a state scholarship, he entered BGS in 1932 where he demonstrated his ability in the classroom and on the sporting field.

He became a Prefect, member of the School Committee and librarian. In 1936 he was the School’s Singles Tennis Champion and Captain of Tennis, Vice Captain of the First XI and a member of the First XV. He also played GPS All-Schools Cricket.

He enrolled at The University of Queensland in 1937, gaining a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 1942. A year later he married Esther Gilmore Wilson, a fellow medical student. They had four children, three of whom became medical practitioners.

Dr Roe subsequently served as a Medical Officer in the RAAF from 1943 to 1945. After the war, he returned to Brisbane and, like his father, became a urologist.

In 1991, Dr Roe endowed the Arthur Stanley Roe Scholarship with other members of his family to preserve the name of his father within the School.

In 2005, Dr Roe was appointed Assistant Professor (part time) in the Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine at Bond University. He was awarded Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1977, specialising in urology.

He was recognised in the 2011 Australia Day Honours List for services to medicine, particularly through contributions to the Australian Medical Association Queensland and to the community.

An advocate of physical fitness, he won several veterans (seniors) tennis championships and jogged well into his 90s along the beach near Roe’s Kamp (originally Whirobo), his home on South Stradbroke Island. It was named after the School’s first outdoor camp started by his grandfather Reginald, on adjoining land in the early 1880s.

Dr Roe died in his 99th year on 15 January 2019, a month shy of 100 years. As a student, medical specialist and retiree he demonstrated his lifelong commitment to BGS and its history, which was so closely connected with members of his own family – the Roe and Haymen families.

Perhaps Dr Roe’s legacy is the rich body of material he donated to the School over the years. It has been a gold seam for researchers mining the School Archives for information.

This is nowhere more evident than in the text and pictorial references in the School’s sesquicentenary history publication, Light dark blue: 150 years of learning and leadership at Brisbane Grammar School, launched earlier this year.