Early Life
Born in Adelaide, Tonkin's father died when he was five, leaving Tonkin's mother to raise him and his siblings. Tonkin attended local public schools before gaining a scholarship to St Peter's College. Accepted into Medicine at the University of Adelaide, Tonkin worked as a taxi driver while completing his degree and practiced as a General Practitioner before undertaking a postgraduate ophthalmology course in London. He established a practice in Adelaide and was soon considered one of the city's leading eye surgeons. Tonkin was of Cornish ancestry.
Tonkin's dedication to public service was in evidence through his honorary service as an eye surgeon to Adelaide public hospitals and the initiation, through the Lions Club, of Australia's first public screening programme for glaucoma. In 1962 Tonkin became executive director of the Australian Foundation for Prevention of Blindness SA Inc.
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