Dramatis Personae—Fellows of Senate
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Dramatis Personae: Act 1
The medically qualified Fellows of Senate, the Examiners constituting the Faculty of Medicine, and the Candidates who received degrees by examination or ad eundem gradum make up the characters of the first act of our drama. There were nine practitioners who became Fellows of Senate during the period between 1850 and when the first enrolled students of Medicine graduated (1888), including Smith and Anderson Stuart, and two of the nine, Nicholson and MacLaurin, became Chancellor. Before the arrival of Anderson Stuart in 1883, nineteen Examiners had been appointed, nine initially and the other ten subsequently as vacancies occurred, and fifteen candidates obtained degrees by examination, either the MB or the MD or both. In addition, twenty obtained ad eundem gradum degrees between the passing of the enabling act in 1881, and 1888. Between 1888 and the turn of the century, nine of those who obtained MB ChM degrees as full-time students at Sydney University obtained, in addition, the MD degree, while seven graduates of other institutions obtained the MB or MD ad eundem gradum.
The Examiners of the Faculty, always excepting Smith, formed a remarkably homogeneous group. Almost all of them were office bearers in one or other of the various Medical Associations that were formed in Sydney between 1840 and 1880 and most also held appointments at one or more of the public hospitals, the Sydney Infirmary and the Benevolent Asylum, initially, and St Vincent’s, Prince Alfred and the Children’s Hospital later. Many also held part-time Government appointments and/or served on the Medical Registration Board. To say this, of course, is to say no more than that the same group of practitioners provided the membership of all the ‘public’ medical bodies of the day, the Faculty of Medicine included. Smith, of course, was not a part of this medical oligarchy but it was not he who influenced the appointments to Faculty but rather, the other medical Fellows of Senate and, doubtless, the Board of Examiners itself would have tended to make suggestions collectively or individually to the medical Fellows. The last major act of patronage of this group was to secure the appointment of a panel of clinical lecturers in 1882 and 1883 before Anderson Stuart arrived: James Charles Cox (Medicine), Frederick Milford (Surgery), Thomas Chambers (Midwifery), Thomas Storie Dixson (Materia Medica), William Henry Goode (Public Health, Medical Jurisprudence) and W. Camac Wilkinson (Pathology). Once Anderson Stuart arrived and as MacLaurin began to gain ascendancy in the Senate, the source of University medical patronage inevitably became distinct from that in the rest of the profession, a separation that was facilitated by the slow but overwhelming rise to prominence of the University’s hospital, Prince Alfred, at the expense particularly of Sydney Hospital. Nevertheless, although forming a homogeneous group, the Examiners still consisted of the most successful medical practitioners of the day. As such they all, in one way or another, exhibited great abilities and pursued interesting careers. To read even the following brief biographies is to glimpse what it was like to be born with great talent, in the lower middle classes or even working classes, but in a free enterprise society where the prizes were few but rich, and those who succeeded in the upward struggle succeeded very handsomely indeed. It is interesting to know something about these people, many of whom were, or became well known, while others remained relatively obscure. In the following pages, brief biographical outlines are provided about all of the Examiners and the medical Fellows of Senate (except Anderson Stuart, who is dealt with in a separate chapter) appointed before 1888 when the first of the School’s own intake graduated. Outlines are also given for all those who graduated by examination before the School opened. In the next Chapter the biographies of the thirteen students who graduated in 1888 and 1889 after enrolling in the regular Medical School course will be presented as well as those of the teachers appointed to instruct them. The principal sources of information are indicated in the notes at the end of each biography.
Medical Fellows of Senate Other Than Anderson Stuart
Sir Charles Nicholson Bt (1808–1903)
MD Edin. HonLLD Cantab. HonLLD Edin. HonDCL Oxon. Chancellor (1860–1861) Provost (1854–1860) Vice-Provost (1851–1853) Fellow of Senate (1850–1883)
Charles Nicholson was born in Cumberland, England, the only son of a merchant. He was orphaned at an early age and grew up in Yorkshire in the care of a maiden aunt. After receiving private schooling, he studied Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with distinction; he obtained his MD in 1833 for a thesis in Latin on the causes and treatment of asphyxiation. Almost immediately thereafter, he emigrated to Australia accompanied by his aunt and a male cousin to join an uncle, Captain James Ascough, who had made a fortune in trading and shipping and who now owned a large property on the Hawkesbury River. Nicholson inherited his uncle’s estate, following his death in a drowning accident, and after a few years of country practice, moved to Sydney where, while continuing to practise, he began to enter business and public life. His inheritance brought him great wealth and he became an absentee pastoralist on a very big scale. In Sydney he enjoyed a reputation as an excellent obstetrician but, of course, as was normal in those days, his practice was quite general. Slowly his medical work was phased out but he was still reasonably active in this respect until 1845. Indeed, in 1844 he was elected Vice-President of the Medico-Chirurgical Association of Australia, the forerunner of all other Australian medical professional bodies1. He sat as a member of the Medical Board in the 1840s and was elected to the Legislative Council in 1843 as the Member for Port Phillip. He became Speaker from 1846 to 1856.
During these years he became associated and politically allied with William Charles Wentworth and, in due course, he became a foundation Fellow of the Senate of the University of Sydney. In the University he held office, first as Vice-Provost from 1851 and later as Chancellor or Provost from 1854 to 1861, and even though he left the Colony for England in that year, never to return, he remained a Fellow of Senate until 1883. In that capacity, he often acted as the University’s agent abroad, for example by helping to engage staff. Similarly, at an earlier time, it was he who secured the grant to the University of its Arms and of a Royal Charter, the latter assuring the University of the recognition of its degrees in Britain. Although he failed, while resident in Sydney, to get the Medical School opened, he ensured that the Faculty was created and, from England, kept raising the question of opening a Medical School until the matter was finally accomplished. For example, in August 1865, at his instigation, a certain Mr Peter Smith, ‘from Scotland’, wrote to the Senate offering his services uninvited as a Professor of Anatomy. It can be presumed that, in 1882, he was active in seeking out a suitable candidate for the position to which Anderson Stuart was eventually appointed. That there appears to have been only one candidate, and that unanimously recommended by several different professional and academic institutions, suggests that someone coordinated the selection process. Unfortunately his private papers were destroyed in a fire in 1901 and we cannot tell—Professor Smith was also in England on leave in 1882 and he certainly had discussions with Anderson Stuart (Epps, 1922) but it is difficult to imagine that the dour and unenthusiastic Smith could have been responsible for finding such a candidate.
Nicholson was created a Knight Bachelor in 1852 and a Baronet in 1859 in recognition of his outstanding service to the Colony. He died in England in 1903 at the age of ninety-five. His Arms are carved in stone on the eastern façade of the Great Hall to the left of the entrance, and a full length and very impressive portrait of him hangs within, on the western wall. The fine charcoal and pastel drawing of him by G. Koberwein, reproduced in this volume, hangs in the entrance to the Nicholson Museum: it was given to the University in 1961 by Sir Charles’s grandson, Sir John Nicholson2.
Today, Nicholson is remembered principally for his non-medical activities. He assembled a magnificent collection of antiquities which he gave to the University in 1860, a collection that forms the core of the present Nicholson Museum, among the finest University teaching collections of antiquities anywhere. His interest in art and archaeology was just one manifestation of his enormous cultivation and learning. The University as a whole is justly proud of him as a founding Fellow and a great Chancellor but the Faculty of Medicine owes him particular recognition for his was the drive that led to its foundation.
A.D.B. Vol. 2, pp. 283–285. Senate Minutes, August 1865. Dallan, R. A. (1933). J.R.A.H.S. Vol. 19, pp. 213–220. Windeyer, W.J.V. (1978). Sir Charles Nicholson: A Place in History. The John Murtagh Macrossan Lecture, 1976. University of Queensland Press, St Lucia. Qld. Archives of the Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney. Epps, William (1922). Anderson Stuart MD. Angus and Robertson, Sydney. Sydney Morning Herald (1844). 18 May.
1The Herald notice (18 May, 1844) stated that a meeting of several practitioners was held on Wednesday, 15 May, 1844, at the Sydney Dispensary, for the purpose of forming a medical association for mutual cooperation on all subjects connected with the advancement of medical and surgical knowledge. William Bland was elected to chair the meeting and delivered an evidently prepared speech. Frederick McKellar MD, the Dispensary Surgeon, moved, and Patrick Harnett, Colonial Surgeon, seconded a motion that the Medico-Chirurgical Association of Australia be formed. This was carried and Bland was elected President, Nicholson and F. L. Wallace, Vice Presidents, and George Bennett, secretary-treasurer. A provisional committee, with powers of co-option, was elected, consisting of G. Fullerton, P. Harnett, A. a’Beckett, F. McKellar, R. Jones, J. Macfarlane, J. Mitchell, and C. Nathan. Bland was then formally thanked by the assembly from which it can be inferred that he had been the instigator. The association does not seem to have lasted for long. 2I am grateful to the Curator of the Nicholson Museum, Professor Alexander Cambitoglou, for permission to reproduce this previously unpublished drawing by Koberwein.
Bartholomew O’Brien (1811–1870)
MD Glasgow Fellow of Senate (1850–1869)
Of the medically qualified Fellows of Senate appointed at the foundation of the University, we know least about Bartholomew O’Brien. He was born in London in 1811, the son of a military officer of the same name who held a commission in the 5th Dragoon (Royal Irish) Guards. He received his medical education in Edinburgh, where he obtained his licences to practise medicine, and at Glasgow University where he obtained the MD degree in 1833. In August 1837, at the age of twenty-five, he came to Australia and practised in the Wollongong and Illawarra districts. As early as September 1837 he received an appointment as Crown Commissioner of Lands in N.S.W. in the Illawarra district. In 1840 he became a subscriber to the works of John Gould, the great ornithologist, attesting to his scientific interest and his relative affluence. In about 1847 he happened by chance to be called to attend the Governor, Sir Charles FitzRoy (Governor-General 1846–1855), who was visiting the district and had fallen ill. FitzRoy was impressed with his abilities and invited him to come to Sydney, which he did in 1848; he continued to act as physician to FitzRoy and to FitzRoy’s successor, Sir William Denison (Governor-General 1855–1860). During this period, O’Brien established a thriving private practice in Castlereagh Street in which, for a short time, James Robertson (q.v.), an Examiner of the Faculty, was a partner. Like Robertson, O’Brien was a member and office bearer of the newly formed Australian Medical Association of which he was Treasurer in 1859 and Vice-President in 1860.
His appointment by the Executive Council to the Senate of the University of Sydney may reflect Sir Charles FitzRoy’s influence. Since Wentworth’s original proposal for inclusion of the emancipist, William Bland, had been blocked, the appointment of O’Brien assured a reasonable representation for the medical profession on the new Senate. To FitzRoy also, may be attributed O’Brien’s appointment in 1852 as Medical Adviser to the Government and Head of the Government Medical Service, a post that entailed, inter alia, acting as Visitor to Lunatic Asylums, as Medical Officer to Darlinghurst Gaol and the Cockatoo Island Dockyards (operated by convict labour), and as Superintendent of the Parramatta Lunatic Asylum. He surrendered his appointments at the Darlinghurst Gaol and at the Cockatoo Island Dockyards in favour of George West in March 1853, and his other appointments terminated in 1856 except that he remained a member of the Medical Board of New South Wales to which he was first appointed on 9 July 1850. He was an Honorary Physician to the Sydney Infirmary for a short time (1861–1862) and he was a member of the Senate committees charged with negotiating with the Infirmary over arrangements for teaching when the Medical School opened. He was also a member of the Royal Society of New South Wales.
He appears to have developed serious cerebro-vascular disease around 1866 and died at Concord on 18 January 1870, according to the Sydney Morning Herald of ‘softening of the brain brought on by over-anxiety’. He was buried at Newtown in the Church of England cemetery and there is a memorial stone to him in St James’s Church at Queen’s Square. He was survived by his wife and seven children but the statement in the Herald’s obituary that he died impoverished was strongly denied in an anonymous letter published in the Herald on 20 January which said that his three eldest daughters were all married to gentlemen of the city and that the other four children and his widow had been well provided for. O’Brien’s Arms, carved in stone, can be seen on the exterior of the northern wall of the Great Hall at Sydney University and his initials decorate a string course boss immediately above the wall shield.
It is difficult to assess the importance of his role in the foundation of the Faculty in view of the shortage of information about him. That he served on the Senate’s committees concerned with planning for the opening of a Medical School surely indicates that he supported Nicholson and Douglass and it may be that the demands of his busy practice dissuaded him from becoming an Examiner (neither Nicholson nor Douglass did either).
The Australian (1837). 25 August. Sydney Morning Herald (1870). 19, 20 January. Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly N.S.W. (1861–1862). Vol. 2, pp. 85–86. Anonymous (1860). Medical Directory for N.S.W. and Queensland 1860. Australian Medical Association, Sydney.
Henry Grattan Douglass (1790–1865)
MD Dublin MRCS LKQCP FRIA Fellow of Senate (1853–1865)
Henry Grattan Douglass was born in Dublin, the son of an apothecary. At the age of nineteen he saw service as an assistant surgeon in the Peninsular war (1809–1810) and, later, in the West Indies (1811). In 1812 he was invalided home, and, for the next three years, worked as Superintendent of a fever and general hospital in Tipperary. In 1815 he obtained his MRCS (England) and in 1819 became a Licentiate of the King’s and Queen’s College of Physicians of Ireland (LKQCP). During the Dublin typhus epidemic of 1817, he made careful observations on the spread of the disease and published a pamphlet on its prevention. He also submitted a thesis in Latin on this topic for the MD degree at Trinity College Dublin in 1820, and, on 26 June of the same year, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Irish Academy, no mean feat for a young man aged thirty. During this period he was associated closely with several noted philanthropists in a movement aimed at improving conditions in Irish prisons and at relaxing the draconian penal laws then in force. Seeking new fields in which to operate, or, as his enemies later had it, seeking to evade a recall to service with the British army, Douglass emigrated, arriving in Sydney in May 1821 with a letter of introduction from Earl Bathurst to Governor Macquarie which secured very favoured treatment for him. He was appointed Medical Officer at Parramatta, an appointment that included acting as superintendent of the Parramatta Hospital and the Female Factory. In addition to his salary (£137 p.a.) he received a house from the Government for himself and his large family for nine shillings per week. He was also appointed a Magistrate for the Parramatta district. He became a very prominent figure in Parramatta society and, among other activities, was a founder of the Benevolent Society of which he became Vice-President. Douglass’s fortune rose further under the rule of Macquarie’s successor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, but the resentment and hostility of many of the established colonists, which ultimately caused his eclipse, came to a head when he became embroiled in a series of clashes with the Reverend Samuel Marsden and Hannibal Macarthur. It is difficult to know the truth behind all the accusations and counter-accusations, which began with an allegation that he had dealt improperly with a convict girl, Ann Rumsby, whom he had ‘rescued’ from the Female Factory and from the attentions of another would-be rescuer, the surgeon, James Hall. (Macarthur Brown describes her as ‘physically perfect, but morally beyond recall’.) The allegations smack of malice and perhaps even of jealousy, but the story has something of a ring of plausibility about it and, at best it may perhaps be said that Douglass had been incautious if not indiscreet. Perhaps to quell the scandal, Brisbane appointed Douglass a Commissioner of the Court of Requests and sent him to London on business. His stay in England was not a success, principally because his enemies in Sydney denounced him as a deserter from the Army and, although he escaped prosecution, he was not entirely convincing in his efforts at clearing his name. On his return to Sydney in 1825, public hostility forced Brisbane, evidently reluctantly, to remove him from the bench of magistrates. Under Brisbane’s successor, Darling, he fell from his position of favour and was encouraged to leave the Colony again for England in 1828. In England he was thought to be an agent for Wentworth’s party (surely the truth) and lost all his colonial appointments.
Thereafter, until 1848, Douglass pursued a career in France where he founded and superintended a seamen’s hospital for twelve years. For his service in Paris during a cholera epidemic he was awarded a medal from the Government of Louis Phillipe but, with the onset of the troubles of 1848, his career again took a sharp turn and he returned once more to Sydney where Wentworth’s party, now conservative rather than radical as it had been when Douglass was previously in the colony, was in the ascendancy. There he quickly re-entered public life, becoming an Honorary Physician at the Sydney Infirmary (1849) and a Director (1854–1856). In 1856, he became a member of the first Legislative Council under responsible government. He became friendly with Nicholson and resumed his earlier intimacy with Wentworth. He is credited by Francis Merewether, the third Chancellor, with being the person who persuaded Wentworth to move in the Legislative Council for the establishment of the University of Sydney. Nevertheless, Douglass’s still considerable number of political enemies forced Wentworth to accept that he could not be appointed one of the foundation Fellows. Instead, in 1853, Wentworth and Nicholson secured his appointment to fill a casual vacancy. With Wentworth and Nicholson, he worked to establish a Faculty of Medicine and a Medical School but, as recounted above, he died before the latter of these aims was realized.
Douglass was a remarkable man, volatile, rash, and passionate, but a humanist of some stature. He appears also to have been an able practitioner and to have had a scientific interest in public health and epidemiology. He seems to have been a capable administrator, although one of those unfortunates who forever attract or, at least, fail to avoid trouble. It is more than likely that Merewether was right in attributing the foundation of the University to his vision and his capacity to persuade his friend Wentworth to act. Once convinced that he should move, Wentworth had the eloquence and the public stature to convince the Legislature; had Douglass been a member of the Legislative Council and decided to move himself the project would surely have been blocked by his enemies. The significance of his role in the foundation of the Faculty of Medicine is less clear. Certainly he supported Nicholson and Wentworth but, like Nicholson and O’Brien, he did not choose to become an Examiner. Nicholson’s departure followed by his own death left the field to Smith who saw to it that the development of the Faculty would not come before wider University interests. Douglass’s arms are carved on the south wall of the Great Hall and are also depicted in stained glass in the south porch of the main building. He died on 1 December 1865 and was buried at Camden.
A.D.B. Vol. 1, pp. 314–316. Macarthur Brown, Keith (1937). Medical Practice in Old Parramatta, pp. 15–23 & 55–58. Angus and Robertson, Sydney. Noad, K. B. (1962). Bull. Post-Grad. Comm. Med. Univ. Syd., Vol. 18, pp. 125–147.
The Hon. John Smith (1821–1885)
CMG MA MD HonLLD Aberdeen Professor of Chemistry and Experimental Physics (1852–1881) Professor of Experimental Physics (1881–1885) Dean of the Faculty of Medicine (1856–1883) Fellow of Senate (1861–1885) Examiner in Medicine (1856–1885)
John Smith was born near Aberdeen in Scotland in 1821, the son of a blacksmith. He studied at Marischal College, one of the two constituent colleges of the University of Aberdeen, and gained his MA in 1843 and his MD in 1844. He voyaged to Australia in 1847 for health reasons, acting as a ship’s surgeon, before taking up a position as Lecturer in Chemistry and Agriculture at Marischal College. It was while in this position that he first became interested in water purity and water analysis.
In 1852 he was appointed foundation Professor of Chemistry and Experimental Physics at the University of Sydney and began his teaching in what is now the Sydney Grammar School. He was the first Professor of Chemistry in Australia, his appointment antedating that at Melbourne University by thirty years, but it is generally accepted that he was trained a few years too soon to gain from the explosion in chemical knowledge that occurred in the later 19th century, so that his teaching was already a little out of date even at the time of his appointment. He took eighteen months’ leave in 1860, ostensibly to update his scientific knowledge, but on his return his courses showed little change. Following the appointment in 1866 of A. M. Thomson1, he devoted himself to public affairs and began to drift away from Chemistry more and more, the process becoming almost complete when he secured the appointment of Archibald Liversidge1 in 1872. Thereafter he had the title of Professor of Experimental Physics but there is little evidence that he taught Physics, at least as we would understand it.
In public life Smith made more of a mark. From 1853 he served on the Board of National Education and made significant contributions to the reforming Public Schools Act of 1866, promoted by Henry Parkes. In that year, Parkes appointed him to the newly created Council of Education, of which he was nine times elected President. He pursued his long-standing interest in water purity and frequently acted as Government adviser on such matters as the siting of water reservoirs. He chaired a Royal Commission on the water supply of Sydney and its suburbs and laid plans for when the city developed to a population of 250,000. Even in this field, however, his mastery of the subject of water analysis can be questioned and he clashed publicly with his own successor, Archibald Liversidge, over a question of water pollution. In June 1874 Smith was appointed to the Legislative Council and often contributed to debates on health, medicine and education. Smith was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1856 and became a Fellow of Senate in 1861. His negative role in the development of the Medical School has been discussed earlier and need not be developed further here. His performance in the Legislative Council during the debate on the Medical Bill of 1874, which was defeated, indicates an underlying antipathy to medical practitioners and, after that debate, the hostility was fully reciprocated. Thus, the N.S.W. Medical Gazette in 1875 devoted a five-page editorial article to an attack on him, claiming that he ‘sneers at the system of lectures and book learning and makes observation, sense perception, and instinct, superior to mental discipline and the careful acquisition of knowledge’ and accusing him of being an apologist for quacks. One can but say that Smith stood condemned out of his own mouth but, in exculpation, it is fair to point out that he spoke the truth when he criticized the poor behaviour of some registered practitioners.
A plausible case can be developed to represent Smith as somewhat of a puppet, at least with respect to University politics, in the hands of the Principal, the Rev. John Woolley. Thus, when Smith first gave evidence before the Select Committee of 1859 investigating the administration of the University, he was almost obstinately non-critical and stated quite emphatically that he personally had no wish to become a Fellow of Senate. Only a couple of days later however, when he reappeared before the committee after having consultations with Woolley, he had become transformed into a hostile critic of the Senate and did Nicholson and his colleagues considerable damage. It is ironic that he should have been able to use Nicholson’s one popularizing gesture, the creation of a Medical School, as a means of attacking the Senate, but if one considers that Woolley may have been pursuing single-mindedly the object of getting places for the Professors on the Senate, then Smith’s actions became comprehensible since they certainly did provide good grounds in support of Woolley’s case. Smith’s volte face before the committee does not suggest a man of great strength of character with deeply held views but rather a weak man anxious to placate his senior colleague and prepared to say what he was told to.
In 1876 the University of Aberdeen conferred an honorary LLD on him for his work on water analysis and he received a CMG in 1878 for his services to education. He died in 1885, according to the record, ‘of phthisis’. His name is commemorated in the University by a prize for first-year Chemistry which he endowed in his will, but he is virtually forgotten in the Faculty of which he was Dean for twenty-seven years.
It is not easy for the medical historian to view him objectively. There is little doubt that he made a significant contribution to public life in the colony and even, by his interest in water pollution, to public health and to medicine. He performed adequately as Professor of Chemistry but scarcely at all as a physicist. His main contribution to the University must be seen as fostering the development of the ‘Arts’ curriculum, principally the science subjects, and resisting the expansion of the University into the field of professional training. He was conservative to the point of short sightedness, even opposing the move of the University from Hyde Park to the Grose Farm. Anderson Stuart, in an exuberant moment in his jubilee address, referred to him as a ‘zealous, but cautious, promoter of public education, and the public good’, but elsewhere in the same paper he exposed him as a member of the professional group that betrayed Nicholson in public before the hostile Parliamentary Select Committee of 18592.
G. H. Abbott, reminiscing in 1935 about his student days at Sydney University described him in kindly enough terms: I was a youngster of sixteen years when he lectured to us of the first year, which was then common to all faculties. I can still imagine that I hear his voice— ‘Thir-r-d student from the end wark oot, the next student please wark oot’. ‘Mr Ogilvie, you yawned!’. ‘Excuse me sir, but I did not.’ ‘I’ll tak’ your word for it, but I doan’t believe it.’ Perhaps the Faculty was fortunate that Smith delayed the School’s opening for so long—as a consequence it grew in expansionist times in a unique relationship with a new teaching hospital. Had it opened earlier it would surely have enjoyed a less propitious beginning. Nevertheless, it would be going beyond the obligations of Christian charity to attribute this farsightedness to Smith. Since Anderson Stuart wrote in 1902, Smith’s relation to the birth of the Faculty has passed out of sight and few now know of his existence. One hundred years after his death, we can view him dispassionately, and be grateful that, in the end, he did the Faculty no lasting harm. Today, Smith’s most lasting memorial is a splendid collection of photographs of the University taken when its finest buildings were under construction. Smith was a talented amateur photographer, one of the first in Australia3.
A.D.B. Vol. 6, pp. 148–150. Sydney Morning Herald (1875). 14 May. Sydney Morning Herald (1885). 13 October. N.S.W. Med. Gaz. (1875). Vol. 5, pp. 60–65. Aust. Med. Gaz. (1902). pp. 491–503. Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly N.S.W. (1860). Vol. 4, pp. 111–115. Taylor, R. C. (1970). Changes in the Curriculum of the University of Sydney 1860–1890 with Special Reference to Medical Education. Unpublished Essay, University of Sydney Archives. Abbott, G. H. (1935). RPA Yearbook, pp. 9–17.
1Alexander Morrison Thomson DSc Lond., who was appointed in 1866 as Reader in Geology and Mineralogy and as ‘Assistant in the Laboratory’, relieved Smith of much of his teaching load. Thompson became Professor of Geology and Mineralogy in 1870 but died early in 1872. He was succeeded in the same year by Archibald Liversidge MA Cantab., who was appointed as Reader in Geology and Assistant in the Laboratory. Liversidge became Professor of Geology and Mineralogy in 1874 but the title was changed to Chemistry and Minerology in 1881 and to simply Chemistry in 1891. At the time of his appointment as Professor in 1874, he was also designated ‘Demonstrator in Practical Chemistry’ and, like Thomson, he relieved Smith of most of his teaching responsibilities. 2Anderson Stuart, however, misinterprets Smith’s evidence before the Committee as indicating that he was made Dean without his being consulted. In fact Smith complained that, having been made Dean in 1856, he was nevertheless not consulted in 1859 when Senate resolved to open a Medical School in 1860. 3I would like to acknowledge a particular debt to Mr Ross Taylor, of Macquarie University, for making his unpublished essay available to me.
Charles Braham Nathan (1816–1872)
MRCS LSA HonFRCS Fellow of Senate (1868–1872) Examiner in Medicine (1856–1870)
Charles Nathan was born in London, the eldest child of Isaac Nathan by his first wife. At the age of thirteen he left home and apprenticed himself to an apothecary; four years later he enrolled at the Westminster Hospital Medical School and, in 1837, obtained his licences (LSA and MRCS). After practising for a few years in partnership with the surgeon, Archibald Campbell, in Belgrave Square in London, he opted to emigrate with his family and arrived in Sydney in April 1841. He commenced practice in Elizabeth St. North, in January 1842 and, later in the same year, married a certain Harriet Fisher from Richmond. In 1845 he became Honorary Surgeon to the Sydney Infirmary, being one of the four original members of the honorary staff at that institution. He claimed to be the first to use ether as a general anaesthetic in Australia, having administered it in Spring Street for Mr John Belisario, the dentist, in 1846, just one year after its first employment for this purpose in Boston1. Nathan publicized his experience in the Sydney Morning Herald and was strongly criticized by Isaac Aaron, then editor of the Australian Medical Journal, ostensibly because of the risks he took but probably in reality, because he chose to use the Herald as his vehicle of publication and maybe also because of personal rivalry between Aaron and the newcomer, Nathan2. Time, of course, vindicated his use of ether (if not his choice of publication medium) although, ironically, he became in later days an exponent of chloroform rather than ether anaesthesia. His letter to the Herald on 15 June 1847, reproduced here, would certainly have got him into trouble with the Medical Board today, not just the Australian Medical Association. To the Editors of the Sydney Morning Herald.
Gentlemen.—It having been asserted, and by some persons believed, that the inhalation of the vapour of ether is dangerous, and that the surgeon who permits its use is careless of the welfare of his patient, allow me, through your columns, to state that I have within the last few days witnessed nearly forty painless operations from it, having myself inhaled before I experimented upon any one, and in no instance did mischief or even unpleasantness follow. The numerous cases recorded in the journals of England and Ireland establish the same fact—that the inhalation of the vapour of ether is harmless. In experimenting for surgical purposes I had one gentleman 22 1/2 minutes in a state of perfect insensibility to pain and his observation on recovery was, that he would never have a tooth drawn again without first undergoing the same process.
The effects of this great discovery have been witnessed by many persons of the soundest judgment, among whom I will venture to name Messrs. Michie, Holroyd, Kemp, Alderman Allen, M.C., Colonial Surgeon Richardson, and Doctors Silver and Cox; and I would advise those who have any doubt, and feel an interest in the subject, to pay a visit to Mr Belisario, who will be happy to give them an opportunity of forming their own opinion. Charles Nathan Elizabeth-street North, June 14.
On his retirement from active duty at Sydney Hospital in 1865, he became an Honorary Consultant Surgeon to the Hospital and, later still, also to St Vincent’s Hospital. From 1856 to 1870 he was an Examiner in Medicine at Sydney University and, in 1868, he became a Fellow of Senate, an appointment of importance to the Faculty since, by then, Douglass was dead, O’Brien was suffering from his terminal cerebro-vascular complaint, and Nicholson was living abroad. He was also involved in the affairs of one of the colleges of the University. Thus, as early as 1853 he had donated the sum of £100 towards the construction of an Anglican College within the University (originally planned to be called Queen’s College but, later, actually named for St Paul) and, at a meeting of the subscribers held at St James’s church on 13 December, 1855, he was elected a Foundation Lay Fellow of the College with which he remained associated for the rest of his life. In 1859 he was active in the formation of the Australian Medical Association, of which he became a trustee, a forerunner of the N.S.W. branch of the British Medical Association. In addition, he was a member of the Medical Board of N.S.W. from 1854 to 1872. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1857.
Apart from his distinction as a surgeon, Nathan was a fine singer, trained by his father Isaac who was probably the first composer to work in Australia. On his death in 1872 he was survived by his wife and twelve children; his eldest daughter married Henry Normand MacLaurin (q.v.), later to become Chancellor, who also inherited his thriving Macquarie St. practice. A tablet to his memory can be seen in St James’s church, Queen’s Square, of which he was a Warden for many years3.
A.D.B. Vol. 5, p. 327. Aust. Encyc. (1958). Vol. 7, p. 244. Miller, Douglas (1955). Bull. Post. Grad. Comm. Med. Univ. Syd., Vol. 13, pp. 61–76. Potter, W. L. (1938). Med. J. Aust. II, pp. 940–950. N.S.W. Med. Gaz. (1872). Vol. 2, p. 43. Sydney Morning Herald (1847). 15, 16 June. Sydney Morning Herald (1855). 13 December. Private papers and unpublished MSS of Mr C. V. Nathan.
1Potter, in his article Anaesthetics in Australia in the Early Days, awards the priority for the first use of ether as an anaesthetic agent to W. R. Pugh, who operated to remove a tumour of the jaw and for cataract on two patients under ether anaesthesia at St John’s Hospital, Launceston, on 7 June 1847. Nathan’s report of its use by himself and John Belisario for tooth extractions, was dated 14 June 1847, but the operations themselves took place some days earlier, so that it would be fairer to say that Pugh, Nathan and Belisario share priority in this matter. 2Aaron had a substantial financial investment in the Australian Medical Journal so that he cannot have failed to resent Nathan’s by-passing of his journal for the Sydney Morning Herald. The Australian Medical Journal, published 1846–1847, should not be confused with another periodical of the same name, published by the Medical Society of Victoria from 1856 to 1914. 3I am grateful to Mr C. V. Nathan for allowing me to read his unpublished manuscript Top Surgeon.
The Hon. Sir Arthur Renwick Kt (1837–1908)
BA Syd. MD Edin. MD Melb. FRCSEd Vice Chancellor (1889–1890, 1900–1901, 1906–1907) Fellow of Senate (1877–1908) Examiner in Medicine (1874–1908)
Arthur Renwick was born in Glasgow, a bricklayer’s son. His parents emigrated in 1841 and he grew up in Redfern. He came up to Sydney University in 1853 and graduated BA in 1857, one of ten graduates in the second year in which the University conferred degrees. He studied medicine in Edinburgh, gaining his LRCSEd and MB in 1860 and his FRCSEd and MD in 1861. He returned to Sydney in 1862 and developed a private practice in Elizabeth Street. Throughout his lifetime he was associated with Sydney Hospital, the Benevolent Asylum (later the Royal Hospital for Women, Paddington) and the N.S.W. Institution for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind. At Sydney Hospital he was Honorary Physician (1866–1875), Honorary Consultant Physician (from 1876), Vice President (1878) and then President (1880–1908). Similarly, he became President of the Institution for the Deaf and the Dumb. He was also a member, and later President, of the Medical Board of N.S.W. for thirty-five years from 1873. He is held responsible for the construction of the front blocks of the Royal Hospital for Women and for the truly remarkable Institute building in Darlington, now part of the University campus. He was the foundation President of the N.S.W. branch of the British Medical Association (1880–1881).
He pursued a successful political career, first as the member for East Sydney (1882), later as member for Redfern (1885–1887) and later still, as a member of the Legislative Council. During his time in Parliament he served as Secretary for Mines and as Minister for Public Instruction, and he promoted numerous bills of importance to medicine and social welfare as well as for the University, for instance, the ad eundem gradum Act and the Anatomy Act, both of 1881. He is generally credited with being the person most responsible for the introduction of old-age pensions in New South Wales.
At Sydney University he became an Examiner in Medicine in 1874, and was many times Acting Dean of the Faculty. He became a Fellow of Senate in 1877 and served as Vice-Chancellor on three occasions. At the time when the news of the Challis bequest was announced, he became extremely active in promoting the claims of the long-planned Medical School. He had at first moved (Senate minutes, 4 January 1882) for the appointment of MacLaurin to the Chair of Anatomy and Physiology but his political sense quickly led him to shift ground and support the move for wide advertisement so that he withdrew his motion at the Senate meeting held on 1 February 1882. (It was then moved and seconded by Sir William Macleay and Sir Alfred Stephen.)
If Nicholson and Douglass were instrumental in the formation of the Faculty, it was Renwick who was responsible for getting the Medical School opened. There is no doubt that this extraordinarily active man was a powerful force, not only within the University, but also in the community, particularly in the fields of health and social welfare. If, as seems the case, he had enemies and was not universally liked, then this is perhaps to be seen as the inevitable consequence of entering political life. The Rev. Charles Badham, the successor to Woolley as Principal, is said to have referred to him as ‘that sebaceous beast’. Achievement of the order attained by Renwick, cannot be obtained without its price.
Renwick was created a Knight Bachelor in 1894 for his services to the community but failed to gain election to the Australian Federal Convention of 1897. He died at his home in Burwood on 22 November 1908 and is buried at Rookwood. A marble portrait bust of him by Simonetti stands in the Great Hall and a stained-glass window, donated by him, at the west end of Barnet’s Medical School building serves to remind us of his great contribution to the Faculty. He is also commemorated by a prize (originally a gold medal awarded for dissecting proficiency) for the pre-clinical examinations (now the first and second barrier examinations) of the Faculty of Medicine, and his name has been given to one of the ward blocks at Sydney Hospital (the Renwick Pavilion).
A.D.B. Vol. 6, pp. 20–21 Aust. Med. Gaz. (1908). p. 688. Watson, J.F. (1911). The History of the Sydney Hospital from 1811 to 1911. N.S.W. Government Printer for Sydney Hospital, Sydney. Senate Minutes, University of Sydney Archives.
The Hon. Sir Henry Normand MacLaurin Kt (1835–1914)
MA LLD St And. MD LLD Edin. Chancellor (1896–1914) Vice Chancellor (1887–1889, 1895) Fellow of Senate (1883–1914) Examiner in Medicine (1876–1914)
Henry Normand MacLaurin was born in Scotland in 1835, the son of James MacLaurin MA, a schoolmaster. He won scholarships to the University of St Andrew’s at the age of fifteen where, after a brilliant undergraduate career, he obtained his MA degree in April 1854 when he was only nineteen years old. He then studied medicine in Edinburgh, receiving his MD in 1857. He accompanied an elder brother, seriously ill with tuberculosis, on a cruise to Spain in 1858 but when the brother, to whom he was closely attached, died he decided to leave Scotland and joined the British Navy as an Assistant Surgeon in 1858. Initially, he was medical officer at the naval hospitals in Greenwich and Plymouth although, at times, his duties took him widely abroad in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. In 1868 he accompanied an expedition to the South Pacific and was several times in Sydney during the next three years. During these visits he came to know the Nathan family well and, in 1871, he married Charles Nathan’s eldest daughter, Eliza Ann, and set up in practice in Parramatta where he had secured an appointment as Government Medical Officer and Physician to The King’s School. The Navy unexpectedly recalled him to duty but he resisted the call, pleading ill health in what his grand daughter, Mrs C. B. Mackerras, described as a rather disingenuous letter. Following the sudden death of his father-in-law in 1872, he took over his flourishing practice in Macquarie Street.
In addition to his practice, MacLaurin was extremely active in Parliament, in business, and at the University. In 1882 he had been appointed to the first Board of Health for N.S.W. and in 1885 became its President. This led, in 1889, to his nomination to the Legislative Council of N.S.W. of which he remained a member until his death. In 1893 he became Vice President of the Executive Council and played an important role in the successful resolution of the bank crash of that year. Mrs C. B. Mackerras argues convincingly that it was his suggestion that the lack of an adequate gold reserve to meet bank withdrawals might be dealt with by making bank notes legal tender. Later in his career he was a prominent opponent of Federation, not because he supported States’ rights, but because he wanted unification of the Australian colonies without a federal structure. It seems fair to say that his arguments against a federal system, which have a topical, modern ring about them, have been amply justified by the passage of time.
Nevertheless, it was at the University that his life’s work was to be consummated. As has been pointed out above, he was offered the Chair of Anatomy and Physiology in 1882 but declined it on grounds of ill health—the second time that ill health was conjured up to resolve a crisis in the life of a remarkably long-lived and active man. As the facts are known to us, the offer of the Chair to him and his subsequent refusal of it, were technically correct even though the Senate can probably be said to have acted unwisely. However, the subsequent reticence, indeed silence, of the Senate, MacLaurin himself, and the members of his family on this question, suggests that MacLaurin must have regarded the incident as most unfortunate. It may well be that he had no prior knowledge of what Renwick proposed doing. Undaunted, he sought election as a Fellow of Senate in the following year, and took his place in 1883 in the same year as Anderson Stuart. He seems not to have harboured any resentment towards Anderson Stuart, who must have been aware of the scandal, since it had reached the pages of the Sydney Morning Herald and was a matter of common knowledge.
In 1887–1889, and again in 1895, he was Vice Chancellor of the University and in 1896 he became Chancellor, remaining in the post until his death in 1914. At the University’s foundation, the Professor of Classics, the Rev. John Woolley, had been appointed also as Principal of the University College and had been paid a salary commensurate with the expectation that he would see to the daily administration of the University College. However, after Woolley and Badham, subsequent Professors of Classics, although retaining professorial seniority and receiving a considerably higher salary, were not appointed Principal. Consequently the policy side of University administration devolved mainly on the Chancellors although the Professor of Classics, as senior Professor, was ex officio Chairman of the Professorial Board, and so retained responsibility for much of the day to day business. MacLaurin, more than any other before him, shouldered this responsibility and administered the University much as a modern day Vice Chancellor would. So important was the role that he played that it was even used as an argument for reform of the University government on the grounds that no other person would ever be able to replace him when he stepped down. Indeed, when the McGowan Labour Government attempted to reform the Senate in 1912 by adding six Government nominees to the body and forcing regular elections on the remaining Fellows, it stipulated in the opening clauses of the Bill that MacLaurin and his Vice Chancellor, His Honour Judge Alfred Backhouse, should remain in office for life.
The University as a whole prospered under MacLaurin’s guidance. The enrolment increased fourfold, numerous new disciplines and two new Faculties, Dentistry and Veterinary Science, were founded and the Medical School grew and flourished. Naturally it is to Anderson Stuart that most of the praise for the growth of the Medical School is given. It was due to his vision and his single-minded determination. Anderson Stuart’s plans would surely not have been realized had he not had so able, so experienced and so sympathetic a Chancellor. Anderson Stuart was not an easy man but MacLaurin seems to have been well able to manage him. In 1902, Anderson Stuart, a man not given to fulsome praise, wrote in his Jubilee address:
From the days of Sir Charles Nicholson, no medical man occupied the position of Chancellor until 1896 when the present distinguished occupant of the office, the Honourable Sir Normand MacLaurin was elected to the chair. Long may he live to fill it! So long will the University prosper.
MacLaurin was not, of course, universally popular and he was often accused of nepotism, particularly in connection with his less able son, ‘stuttering Charlie’.
MacLaurin was created a Knight Bachelor in 1902, according to his son Charles, against his wishes and without his consent. Nevertheless, there could scarcely have been a more worthy recipient for such an honour and it is pleasing to learn that, after a time of refusing to use the title, he became reconciled to it and even began to enjoy it. He certainly carried it with great distinction. In the same year both his former Universities in Scotland honoured him with the award of LLD degrees. He died on 24 August 1914 just before his eldest son fell in the Great War. A grateful University commemorates his name in the MacLaurin Hall, formerly the Fisher Library building, a noble monument to the memory of a truly great Chancellor. His Arms are carved in stone above the eastern entrance of the Anderson Stuart Building, his escutcheon appears in stained glass beside the south portal, and his crest, a galleon with three sets of oars, together with his motto, FIDELIS, is carved in stone, high up on the western end of the north range. (It is interesting to note that Anderson Stuart’s Arms also feature a galleon as crest and on the escutcheon and appear nearby at all three sites.)
Aust. Encyc. (1958). Vol. 5, p. 439. Mackerras, C. B. (1968). J.R.A.H.S. Vol. 54, pp. 265–282. Med. J. Aust. (1914). II, pp. 241–242. Anderson Stuart, T. P. (1902). Aust. Med. Gaz. pp. 491–503. Sydney Morning Herald (1882). 13, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31 January; 1, 2, 3 February.
Sir Philip Sydney Jones Kt (1836–1918)
MD Lond. FRCS LSA Vice Chancellor (1904–1906) Fellow of Senate (1887–1918) Examiner in Medicine (1874–1918)
Sydney Jones was born in Sydney in 1836, the second son of David Jones, the merchant founder of David Jones Ltd. He was educated privately in Sydney and at University College London (from 1853) where he obtained his MB in 1859, winning three gold medals, and his MD in 1860. His licences were MRCS (1858) and LSA (1860) and he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1861. His hospital training was at the University College Hospital.
Returning to Sydney in 1861, he commenced practice in College Street and became an Honorary Surgeon at Sydney Hospital, an appointment that involved an election by the whole body of subscribers, in company with Charles Nathan and Alfred Roberts. In his obituary in The Medical Journal of Australia it was pointed out that this appointment was quite onerous since the Hospital possessed only one house surgeon and each honorary was expected to do all his own dressings. He remained an Honorary Surgeon from 1862 to 1872 and then became an Honorary Consultant Surgeon until his death. During this period he became the first person in Australia to remove an ovarian tumour successfully. After spending some further time in Europe studying, he returned to Sydney in 1876, gave up his general practice, and set up as a consultant physician, one of the first practitioners in Australia to do so.
He was a member of the original Prince Alfred Memorial Committee formed on 20 March 1868 and remained connected with the new hospital thereafter. He was a member of the Hospital Building Committee and then a Director (1878–1883), and from 1887, Honorary Consultant Physician. He was closely connected with the Australian Museum, the Linnean Society and the Royal Society of New South Wales, and was President of the N.S.W. Branch of the B.M.A. (1896–1897). When the third Intercolonial Medical Congress of Australasia was held in Sydney in 1892, he was elected its President.
Jones was keenly interested in education and was elected a Fellow of Senate of the University in 1887, and Vice-Chancellor from 1904 to 1906. He also served as an Examiner from 1874 to 1918. His particular importance to the Faculty lies in his connection with Prince Alfred Hospital, since he became the first of a long line of distinguished physicians of that hospital to serve as Fellows of Senate. Robert Scot Skirving wrote of him: ‘Sydney Jones stood for all that was best, dignified and competent in the profession in Sydney.’ Jones was created a Knight Bachelor in 1905 in recognition of his outstanding work in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis. He died in September 1918 and is commemorated in the University by a portrait painted by Percy Spence, which hangs in the Anderson Stuart Building. He is also commemorated by the stained glass windows that adorn the eastern façade of the Anderson Stuart building, for the installation of which he provided a sum of over £200. Unfortunately, alterations within the building have made in impossible to view these windows except under most inappropriate circumstances.
A.D.B. Vol. 2, pp. 23–24. A.D.B. Vol. 4, pp. 490–491. Aust. Encyc. (1958). Vol. 5, p. 144. Med. J. Aust. (1918). II, pp. 272–275. Plarr’s Lives, Vol. 1, pp. 621–623. Scot Skirving, Robert (1926). Med. J. Aust. I, pp. 290–299.