Vincent "Ċensu" Tabone was born in Victoria, Gozo on the 30th of March 1913. He got his education from St. Aloysius College, then the University of Malta where he graduated as a pharmacist in 1933 and as a Doctor of Medicine in 1937. In 1946 he got a diploma in Ophthalmology from Oxford University, UK and another in 1953 in medical Jurisprudence of the Society of Apothecaries of London.
On the 23rd of November 1943 he married Maria Wirth and together they had eight children.
Tabone served as Regimental Medical officer with the Royal Artillery Brigade in WWII and worked as ophthalmic specialist at Military Hospital, Mtarfa. In 1947 he returned to Malta, where he worked at different hospitals.
In 1954 he founded the Medical Officer's Union (now M.A.M) and for many years was its president. Dr Tabone was also the Founder of the 'Akkademja Ghall-Izvilupp ta' l-Ambjent Demokratiku' (AZAD) and was its President from 1976 to 1988.
Dr Tabone had been active in politics since the early sixties and in 1961 became a member of the Nationalist Party's (NP) Executive Committee. For ten years, from 1962 to 1972, he was Secretary General and from 1972 to 1977 the First Deputy Leader of the NP. In 1978 he was elected President of the Executive Committee. He held this post up to August 1985. Dr Tabone contested the General Elections for the first time in the interests of the NP in 1962. In 1966 he was elected a Member of Parliament and became Minister of Labour, Employment and Welfare. He was re-elected in 1971, 1976, 1981 and 1987.
He represented the Nationalist Parliamentary Group in the Council of Europe since 1973 and was Party Spokesman on Foreign Affairs since 1978.
On the 16th March, 1989, Dr Tabone tendered his resignation as Minister of Foreign Affairs and member of the House of Representatives; and on the 4th April of the same year he was elected by Parliament as the fourth President of Malta.
Dr Tabone passed away on 14th March 2012.
