Photo in wooden frame of family of Lieutenant Colonel A E Coates, 2/10 Australian General Hospital

Rectangular plywood frame with each corner painted in black to resemble photo mounts, and 'HOME' painted in black along the lower edge. The borders of the frame have been edged with red pencil which has faded. A rectangle has been unevenly cut out of the centre of the frame, and displays a photograph of four women and a young boy standing on the steps of a house. A hinged plywood stand has been nailed to the top rear of the frame, allowing the frame to be displayed vertically, and two sheets of card have been attached to the rear to retain the photograph.

Framed photograph of the wife and children of Albert Coates. Born on 28 January 1895 at Ballarat, Victoria, Albert Ernest Coates left school at an early age and undertook night study, excelling as a student. He enlisted on 17 August 1914 in 7 Battalion as a medical orderly and the following year served on Gallipoli. Later, on the Western Front, he transferred to the intelligence staff at corps headquarters.

After returning to Australia on 23 October 1918 Coates studied medicine and over the next decade established himself as a leading surgeon and academic. He was also a militia captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps. In the Second World War Coates was appointed lieutenant colonel in 1941 and Senior Surgeon to the AIF in Malaya. Following the Japanese landings on the Malay Peninsula, Coates moved with 2/10 Australian General Hospital to Singapore.

A few days before the city surrendered he was a part of a group that tried to escape to Java, but they got only as far as Sumatra. He became a prisoner of the Japanese and in May 1942 was sent to Burma where he joined A Force. Coates became renowned for his dedication, skill and wisdom. He worked tirelessly to help sick and dying prisoners of war on the notorious Burma-Thailand Railway. Conditions were deplorable, the treatment brutal, and the death rate high. He later described his daily work as 'segregating the sick from the very sick ... curetting seventy or eighty ulcers ... and, in the afternoon, proceeding to amputate nine or ten legs'.

He created this wooden frame for a photograph of his family that he carried as a constant reminder of home. In 1944 he became responsible for a major prisoners' hospital in Thailand. After the war Coates returned to Melbourne and resumed his distinguished medical career. In 1953 he was made a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, and in 1955 received a knighthood.