Fairfax-Ross was born in Springwood, New South Wales in 1910, the son of Doris Riverstone (née McCulloch) and Basil Fairfax-Ross.[1] He attended the King's School in Parramatta but was unable to afford to study law at university.[1] Following a short spell as a jackaroo, he moved to the Territory of Papua in 1931 to become a plantation assistant for Burns Philp.[1] By World War II he had become an assistant inspector.[2]
He enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force in 1940 and served with the 2/12th Battalion in the Middle East from 1940 to 1942.[2] He then returned to New Guinea to join the Allied Intelligence Bureau, carrying out field intelligence work often behind enemy lines, including serving as a coastwatcher at Oro Bay.[1] During the war he was twice mentioned in dispatches and rose to become a major.[2] He was subsequently awarded the American Medal of Freedom in 1948.[1]
After being demobilised in 1946 he married Jessie Agnes Dalton in Brisbane.[1] He became assistant general manager at the British New Guinea Development Company in the same year, and was elected president of the Papua Planters' Association in 1949, a post he held until 1971.[1] He became the company's general manager and a member of the Copra Marketing Board in 1951.[1] In the same year was appointed as one of the three nominated European members of the Legislative Council, remaining a member until 1963. In 1961 he was also appointed to the Administrator's Council, remaining in the cabinet until 1963.[3] In 1964 he was awarded a CBE.[2]
Fairfax-Ross subsequently served as a member of the Council of the University of Papua New Guinea from 1965 to 1971 and as chairman of the Papua New Guinea Copra Marketing Board between 1971 and 1973.[1] He was also a director of the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier. He retired from the British New Guinea Development Company in 1971 and moved to the Mosman area of Sydney, although remaining a director of Burns Philp and Bougainville Copper.[1] He died at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney in November 1984 at the age of 74, survived by his wife and two daughters.[2]
