Sources of Information About Pioneer Doctors

Introduction | The doctor in society | Records of doctors on ships | Medical registers | Hospital records | Other official records | Professional advertisements | Trade directories and related publications | Professional Publications | Membership records of professional societies | Records of community groups | The local paper | Obituaries | Overseas sources | Secondary sources | Bibliography |

Introduction

Until the first Australian medical graduates entered the profession in the 1860s, all Australian doctors were educated and obtained their qualifications overseas. In the early colonial period, the vast majority of Australian doctors were emigrants from the United Kingdom. When the gold rushes started, this trend continued, although a few additional doctors emigrated from America, New Zealand, India, and Europe. In the middle colonial period, some doctors who were born here, or had immigrated as children, went to study at medical schools in the United Kingdom, returning to Australia to practice. In the later colonial period most new doctors were Australians who were trained in Melbourne or Sydney.

The doctor in society

In early Australia, doctors often held official posts as medical officers on emigrant ships and convict transports, in the army or navy, and in the colonial public service. In these positions, and in the small towns and cities of early Australia, the doctor was more prominent than many of his fellow citizens, and was much more likely than most to have left some record of his professional and personal existence, either in official documents, or in medical publications and newspapers.

Thus the doctor was a trusted and well-known figure. He was often sought to serve on committees. He was frequently a central figure in establishing and running his local church or private school. He often became involved in key businesses, such as banks, newspapers, railways, and shipping. In addition to the variety of official posts open to him, he sometimes entered politics, or ran for the local council: it is common to find early doctors who became mayors, or members of parliament. Many doctors became pastoralists and prominent landowners.

Records of doctors on ships

When looking for official records of doctors, a natural place to start is with the very important records of doctors on ships. Everyone who came here in the early days came, of course, by ship - and almost every ship carried at least one doctor. These included naval vessels, convict ships, and the vast number of passenger ships which brought immigrants to Australia.

Doctors on convict ships

The ships of First Fleet and later naval and convict ships carried doctors as medical officers. Often these medical officers kept a journal, whether for private or official purposes. There were 10 medical officers on the 11 ships of the First Fleet, under the direction of Surgeon General John White. John White's journal is now one of the most treasured of the First Fleet documents. A doctor came out as surgeon on nearly every convict ship throughout the period of transportation of convicts to Australia, which lasted until 1868, and involved something in the order of 1,600 voyages. About 350 surgeons are mentioned by name in Charles Bateson's legendary book on the Convict Ships. Many made more than one voyage.

Convict doctors

Some doctors came as prisoners in convict ships, but they were few and far between. There were in total about 160,000 people transported to the Australian colonies as convicts. According to David Richards, who published most of what is now known of this topic, about 112 were of these doctors.

Ships' surgeons

About 750,000 people emigrated to Australia in the period from settlement to 1860. The average ship carried between 200 and 300 immigrants, which means there were roughly 3,000 voyages to Australia by immigrant ships in this period. In broad terms, every passenger or immigrant vessel of any size carried a medical officer, known as the Surgeon or Surgeon Superintendent. While it is true that many doctors emigrated as passengers, and one early doctor chartered a whole ship to bring his family out to Australia, it was a more common practice to sign up as a Surgeon Superintendent with an immigrant ship and so work the passage out. Some doctors made two or more voyages to Australia as ships' medical officers before settling here themselves. Some made numerous voyages in this capacity, and never settled here. In the official lists of the voyages of immigrant ships, the name of the surgeon superintendent is nearly always recorded alongside that of the captain, so these voyages can easily be traced.

Doctors who came out as passengers may be found on passenger lists, often with Dr in place of the usual first name on the list.

Medical registers

Medical registration began in NSW in 1838, and was extended to the Port Phillip district in 1844. The medical register was an official list of legally qualified medical practitioners (although army and navy surgeons, who were not always qualified, could also register). Initially registration was voluntary, but the legislation was steadily tightened up, until unregistered medical practice was effectively illegal. This does not mean that every doctor was registered. The exceptions were:

• first, those who had given up the practice of their profession due to illness or infirmity, or to the acquisition of a large inheritance or another career;
• secondly, those who were unqualified;
• thirdly, those who had a qualification which did not count for the purposes of registration;
• fourthly, those who were too lazy or too proud to register; and
• lastly, those who were in prison, or in the army or the navy.

Medical registers vary somewhat in the information they contain. The early medical registers give only the doctor's name and place of residence. Later registers, however, are more informative. They usually give the doctor's full name and address, his qualifications, including the years in which they were acquired, and date when he first registered. The latter can be useful, but may be misleading. For example, the later registers for Victoria, due to new arrangements which came into force in 1862, always listed doctors who had been registered before 1862 as having been first registered in that year. It should be noted that registers are not always in strict alphabetical order, and there can be misspellings of names. Often, unfortunately, the spelling mistake is in the first letter of the surname (thus for example Frederick William Towle of Geelong is listed on early registers as Frederick William Fowle).

Where the medical registers list qualifications,they are either licences, awarded after an apprenticeship by a medical or surgical guild, or degrees, awarded by a university.

In either case the date and place of the qualification is generally indicated in the register. This can be a valuable clue to further research. The original licensing bodies or universities can be contacted for further information. Licensing bodies are usually a Society of Apothecaries, a College of Surgeons or a College of Physicians, in a particular city. Pictured here are buildings still occupied by the Society of Apothecaries in London and the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, which would have been familiar to many colonial doctors..

Hospital records

Doctors in the early days in Australia often sought hospital appointments. Some were resident surgeons, others were consultants. Very often therefore, traces of a doctor may be found in hospital records of appointment, whether to the salaried or the honorary staff, and in the minutes of hospital committees of management. A considerable amount of information about individual doctors is often to be found in published hospital histories.

By kind permission of The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London

Other official records

What other official records are pertinent to doctors? Doctors of course signed death certificates. Once uniform system of recording deaths was introduced, doctors can be traced through entries in death registers. Doctors also often had to appear in court to testify at trials, particularly the more serious ones, such as murder trials, records of which would also appear in the press. Doctors were often called upon to advise governments on public health issues, and they frequently appeared on government committees of inquiry. Numerous doctors, for example, were members of, or testified before, the Diphtheria Commission of 1872.

The colonial governments also appointed Health Officers. Coroners were always doctors, until the two roles were separated in the latter part of the century. Doctors occupied official posts in various types of government institutions, particularly in gaols, hospitals, benevolent asylums, lunatic asylums, and children's homes or industrial schools, as well as on government ships, and in the army and navy reserve units. Doctors were appointed as public vaccinators. They were also appointed as quarantine officers. In all these official capacities their appointments were announced in the government gazette, and very often echoed in the local paper, and the medical journals.

Professional advertisements

Assuming a doctor to have self-employed, as would typically be the case with a general practitioner, other records of his professional life (aside from any minor government appointment used to supplement his income) could be hard to find. However most general practitioners advertised at some stage in their career.

It was in fact considered unethical for a doctor to advertise in the normal course of events, but upon arrival in a new town, or when resuming practice after an absence, or when moving from one house to another, the accepted procedure was to place a small advertisement, sometimes known as a 'card', in the local paper. Such advertisements often carry useful information, such as the doctor's new and old addresses, his specialties, his fees, his consulting hours, his partners, his previous positions, and his qualifications.

Trade directories and related publications

Contemporary directories, such as trade directories and biographical dictionaries, can also be useful. In later Victorian times doctors are mentioned in publications such as "Men of the Time" or the Cyclopaedia of Victoria.

Professional Publications

Many colonial doctors wrote books or journal articles for publication on medical topics. These are often useful sources of personal information. The title page of a book usually gives the writer's qualifications, and sometimes includes his present position, his previous positions, and his previous publications. The preface often mentions his address. Journal articles are not so abundant in personal information, but often give the writer's address.

Medical publications of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are, however, not easy to find. The Internet can be used to consult library catalogues, particularly those of the National Library of Australia and the British Library. But journal articles do not generally appear in library catalogues. They are found mainly by consulting printed bibliographies (see below), or by looking through the printed indexes in the bound volumes of the journals themselves.

Because journal articles are quicker and easier to write than books, a doctor is more likely to have written an article or a letter to the editor than a book. It is worth looking for journal articles anytime after about 1830. Often a doctor might write up an interesting case he had treated, or write to the editor expressing an opinion. Doctors in Australia received medical journals from England, and so they often wrote for those journals. The most important English journals for the Australian medical historian are the Lancet and the BMJ. To these must be added the Australian Medical Journal, which commenced life in 1856. All these publications, including the English ones, are available in the university medical libraries and the state libraries.

Membership records of professional societies

In Australia the most important of these were the Medical Society of Victoria, and the British Medical Association. Meetings of the MSV were reported in the society's journal, the Australian Medical Journal.

Records of community groups

Doctors often appeared on committees, partly perhaps because their professional lives were led in relative isolation from other professionals, so the committee was a source of fellowship, and partly because of their strong sense of social responsibility. Thus doctors are often to be found on school councils, church committees, and the committees of football clubs, mechanics institutes and so on. If the minutes or correspondence of those committees still exist, they will contain further useful information, and more might be found in reports published in newspapers of the relevant organisation's activities.

The Local paper

Doctors were often writers of "letters to the editor", sometimes on health matters, sometimes on social issues, often on matters pertaining to local medical and hospital politics. Any serious misconduct on the part of a doctor would certainly be reported in some detail, particularly if he was drunk while attending a woman in childbirth, or made overtures to an attractive female patient, or negligently caused the death of a child. If he was insolvent, that would be reported, as would his imprisonment, should that occur. His new house, his marriage, and the births of his children were always reported, as were his trips "home". His death was invariably marked by obituaries in the local paper, and in the medical journals.

Obituaries

These can be a rich source of information about doctors whose lives are otherwise obscure. As mentioned above, they usually appear in the local press and in the Australian medical journals. Throughout the colonial period, however, obituaries for Australian doctors may also be found in the British newspapers and medical journals.
The interesting examples shown below all come from one issue of the Australasian Medical Gazette (1897)

Overseas Sources

As mentioned earlier, most early Australian doctors, up till the first Australian medical graduates began to appear in force in the 1860s, and the majority for some time afterwards, grew up and were educated in Britain. As a result, there will be records pertaining your medical ancestor's life in the UK. Many such records are relatively inaccessible to us in Australia. However the librarians at some of the medical schools and colleges, such as the Royal College of Physicians, can be helpful in looking up standard sources. These include the English medical directories, which began in 1845 but are patchy when it comes to individual doctors, and the medical registers. Further information may be obtained from licensing bodies, such as the Royal College of Physicians , and from educational institutions, particularly the universities in Scotland, which produced most medical graduates in the colonial period. Another major source of information about doctors in Britain is army and navy records.

For further pointers in this complex area, see:

Was your ancestor a doctor? by Alex Glendinning,

Records of the medical professions, by Susan Bourne and Andrew Chicken (available from the Society of Genealogists); and for Irish doctors, Tracing Medical Ancestors from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

Secondary sources

Local histories are always helpful with doctors.

Hospital histories are always a goldmine of information about doctors.

History books and articles can also be useful. Numerous ships' doctors are mentioned by Michael Canon in his book Perilous Voyages to the New Land (1997).

Bibliographies are useful for journal articles (the commonest form of publication by doctors), conference papers (the second commonest, but not so well preserved) and books. The two national medical bibliographies pertaining to Australia are Sir Edward Ford's Bibliography of Australian Medicine (Sydney : SUP, 1976), and the monumental Bibliography of Australian Medicine and Health Services to 1950 (Canberra : AGPS 1988), which partly supersedes it.

Standard general reference works such as the Australian Dictionary of Biography, are useful for information about more prominent doctors.

Medical references (apart from medical directories and registers)

University of Melbourne Medical School Jubilee 1914.

Melbourne : Ford, 1914

Bostock J.

Dawn of Australian psychiatry

Sydney : Australasian Medical Publishing Company, 1968

Bowden K. M.

Doctors and diggers on the Mount Alexander goldfields.

Maryborough, Vic : the author, 1974

Bowden K. M.

Goldrush doctors at Ballarat.

Balwyn, Vic : the author, 1977

Bray F. I.

Some early medical men of Western Australia.

Medical Journal of Australia 1935; i: 793-801

Bridges B.

Beginnings of medical care for aborigines in Eastern Australia (NSW)

Medical Journal of Australia 1970; ii: 881-3

Bridges-Webb C.

Some early medical history in Gippsland. In: Australia's quest for colonial health, edited by John Pearn and Catherine O'Carrigan.

Brisbane : Department of Child Health, Royal Children's Hospital, 1983:191-201

Brown K. M.

Medical practice in old Parramatta

Sydney :  Angus & Robertson, 1937

Brownhill W. R.

Guardians of health. In:  History of Geelong and Corio Bay. Postscript edition.

Geelong : Geelong Advertiser, 1990

Bruck L.

Australasian medical directory and handbook

Sydney [various dates from 1883]

Bruck L.

Guide to the health resorts in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand,

Sydney : Australasian Medical Gazette, 1883

Cleland J. B.

Pioneer medical men in South Australia

Adelaide : Pioneers' Association of South Australia, [1941?].

Cleland J. B.

First fifty-two names in the medical register of South Australia

Medical  Journal of Australia 1938; ii: 732-8

Cobcroft M.

Medical aspects of the Second Fleet. In: Pearn J, O'Carrigan C. Australia's quest for colonial health

Brisbane : Department of Child Health, Royal Children's Hospital, 1983: 13-33

Cohen B. C.

History of medicine in Western Australia.

Perth : Paterson Brokensha, 1965

Crowther W. E.

Practice and personalities at Hobart Town 1828-1832

Medical  Journal of Australia 1954;i:421-30

Crowther W. E.

Changing scene in medicine: Van Diemen's Land 1803 to 1853

Medical  Journal of Australia 1941;ii:29-34

Crowther W. E.

An address on some aspects of medical practice in Van Diemen's Land, 1825-1839.

Medical  Journal of Australia 1935;i:511-9

Crowther W. E.

Coming of medicine to Tasmania

Medical Journal of Australia 1938;i:340-3

Cummins C. J.

Colonial medical service. Parts I and II.

Modern Medicine of Australia. 1974;17(1,2):11-24, 11-25

Dan N

Medical men of the First Fleet. In: Pearn J., O'Carrigan C. Australia's quest for colonial health.

Brisbane : Department of Child Health, Royal Children's Hospital, 1983: 3-12

Dunlop N. J.

Peep into the past : early Australian surgery. Parts I and II

Medical Journal of Australia 1924;ii:471-6, 522-8

Ford E.

Bibliography of Australian medicine 1790-1900.

Sydney : Sydney University Press, 1976

Ford E.

Medical practice in early Sydney.

Medical Journal of Australia 1955;ii:41-54

Ford E.

Some early Australian medical publications.

Medical History 1972 Jul;16(3):205-25

Fulton  R. V.

Medical practice in Otago and Southland in the early days

Dunedin, N.Z. :Otago Daily Times and Witness Newspapers, 1922

“Garryowen”

Disciples of Aesculapius. In his: Chronicles of early Melbourne 1835 to 1852.

Melbourne : Ferguson and Mitchell, 1888

Gordon D.

Ballow and the "Emigrant" Incident.

Medical Journal of Australia 1966; i: 483-5

Gordon D.

Men of medicine at Separation.

Medical Journal of Australia 1962;ii:1-10

Gordon D.

Waiting years : 1842 to 1859

Medical Journal of Australia 1966; i: 288-90

Graham H. B.

Happenings of the now long past : the centenary of the Medical Society of Victoria.

Medical Journal of Australia 1952;ii:213-47

Graham H. B.

Honourable David Elliot Wilkie M.D. : a pioneer of Melbourne.

Medical Journal of Australia 1956;i:557-65

Haines E.

Pharmacy in Australia. 

Sydney : Australian Pharmaceutical Publishing Co, 1988

Hopton A. J.

List of registered and unregistered medical practitioners at Port Phillip between 1835 and 1851.

Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society 1950;36:376-9

Howard G. T.

Port Phillip's early doctors 1835-1839.

Medical Journal of Australia 1934; i: 361-6

Hughes J. E.

History of the Royal Adelaide hospital  2nd ed.

Adelaide : the Hospital, 1982

Jackson S. E.

Historical notes from the records in the Brisbane Hospital, 1825-1850

Medical Journal of Australia 1922; i: 685-94

Kennedy R. T.

Earliest Gundagai medical practitioners.

Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society  1947; 33 (Pt.3): 145

Lake M.

Vine and scalpel.

Brisbane : Jacaranda Press, 1967

Mackay E. A.

Medical men as pastoral pioneers.

Medical Journal of Australia 1934;ii:476-84

Mackay E. A.

Medical practice during the goldfields era in Victoria.

Medical Journal of Australia 1936;ii:421-8

McIntosh A. M.

Case of Dr. James Mitchell.

Medical  Journal of Australia 1956 ii 161-8

McWhinney A.

History of pharmacy in Western Australia.

Perth 1975

Mitchell A. M.

Hospital south of the Yarra : a history of Alfred Hospital.

Melbourne : the hospital, 1977

O'Sullivan D. M.

David John Thomas : a founder of Victorian medicine

Medical Journal of Australia 1956; i: 1065-72

Patrick R.

Horsewhip the doctor : tales from our medical past.

St. Lucia, Qld : UQP, 1985

Pearn J.

Forced emigration, favourable outcomes.

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 2001;25(5):458-63

Pearn J.

Medicine and botany.

Brisbane : Amphion Press, 1990

Pearn J.

Surgeon-superintendents on convict ships.

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery 1996;66:253-6

Pearn J and Cobcroft M

Fevers and frontiers

Brisbane : Amphion Press, 1990

Pensabene T. S.

Rise of the medical practitioner in Victoria.

Canberra : ANU Press, 1980

Power D.

Plarr's lives of the fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Bristol : Wright, 1930

Richards D.

Medical convicts to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land 1788-1818.

Medical  Journal of Australia 1994;161:73-7

Richards D.

Medical transportees to the Australian colonies 1788-1868. In: Covacevich J. History, Heritage and Health

Sydney : Australian Society for the History of Medicine., 1996.

Richards D.

Medium red with fresh fruity nose...doctors and viticulture in 19th century Australia

Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 1991;84:678-81

Richards D.

Transported to New South Wales : medical convicts 1788-1850.

British  Medical  Journal 1987;295:1609-12

Rimmer W. G.

Portrait of a hospital: the Royal Hobart.

Hobart:  Royal Hobart Hospital 1981.

Russell K. F.

Melbourne Medical School 1862-1962.

Carlton, Vic : Melbourne University Press, 1977.

Young J.A et al (eds)

Centenary book of the University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine.

Sydney University Press, 1984.

Australian Medical Registers and Directories

List of legally qualified medical practitioners

Port Phillip Government Gazette [various years]

Medical directory for New South Wales and Queensland.

Sydney : Joseph Cook, 1860

Medical Board of Victoria.

List of legally qualified medical practitioners.

Australian  Medical  Journal 1857;2:236

Medical Board of Victoria.

Register of medical practitioners

Melbourne : Government Printer,  [various years]

New South Wales Medical Board.

List of the legally qualified medical practitioners of the colony of New South Wales.

Sydney : W. Baker, 1842

New South Wales Medical Board

Register of medical practitioners

Sydney : Government Printer, [various years]

British Medical Registers and Directories

British Medical Directory for England and Wales

London : Lancet, 1853-

Irish Medical Directory

Dublin : William  Curry, 1843-1846

London and provincial medical directory

London : Churchill 1847-69

Medical directory

London : Churchill, 1870-

Medical directory for Ireland

London : Churchill 1852-1860

Medical directory for Scotland

London : Churchill 1852-1860

General References (non-medical directories, indexes, etc)

Australian biographical and genealogical record. Series 1(1788-1841), series 2 (1842-1899)

Sydney : A.B.G.R. in association with the Society of Australian Genealogists, 1985, 1992

Australian dictionary of biography

Carlton : Melbourne University Press, 1966-1993

British parliamentary papers : colonies : Australia : volume 3. 1816 - 1830.

Shannon : Irish University Press, 1968

Convicts to Australia website

Perth : Dead Persons’ Society, n.d. http://www.convictcentral.
com/

Cox and Co.'s Sydney Post Office directory.

Sydney : Cox, 1857

Ford's Sydney commercial directory.

Sydney : Pascoe, 1851.

Historical records of Australia.

Sydney : Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament 1914-1925; and Canberra : AGPS 1997-

New South Wales calendar and General Post Office directory

Sydney : Stephens & Stokes,1832-1837

Index to unassisted passengers 1826-1853

Sydney : Archives Office of New South Wales

Port Phillip almanac and directory for 1847

Melbourne : Herald Office, 1847

Return showing the names of ships chartered for the conveyance of immigrants.....

Melbourne : Immigration Office 1852-1862

Sands Kenny & Co's. Melbourne Directory for 1851

Melbourne 1851

Ships to Australia 1837-9: return of the number of passengers, and the mortality, in government emigrant ships, 1837, 1838, and 1839.

Ships List website.
http://www.theshipslist.com

Victoria inward passenger lists: immigration to Victoria 1852-1879.

Melbourne : Public Record Office, n.d. (website)

Walch's Tasmanian almanac

Hobart. :J. Walch & Sons,1870-

Australian National Botanic Gardens

Biography : biographical notes on plant collectors and illustrators relevant to Australian botany

Website at http://www.anbg.gov.au/
biography/index.html

Bateson C

Convict ships

Glasgow : Brown, Son & Ferguson, 1959

Baxter C. J.

General muster lists of New South Wales and Norfolk Island

Sydney : A.B.G.R., 1999

Billis R. V. and Kenyon A. S.

Pastoral pioneers of Port Phillip. 2nd ed.

Melbourne : Stockland Press, 1974

Cannon M.

Perilous voyages to the New Land.

Mornington, Vic : Today's Australia Publishing Co, 1997

Cockburn R

Pastoral pioneers of South Australia. 

Blackwood SA : Lynton, 1974 (first published 1927).

Coffey H. W. and Morgan M. J.

Irish families in Australia and New Zealand 1788-1983

Revised Ed. S.Melb. 1983

Erickson R.

Bicentennial dictionary of Western Australians.

Nedlands, W.A. : University of Western Australia Press, 1987-8

Flynn M.

Second Fleet : Britain's grim convict armada of 1790.

Sydney : Library of Australian History, 1992

Gibbney H. J. and  Smith A. G.

Biographical register 1788-1939 : notes from the name index of the Australian dictionary of biography.

Canberra : Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1987

Guilford E.

Hunter Valley directory 1841.

Newcastle : Hunter Valley Publications, 1987

Hughes I. A.

Passengers to Port Phillip [from various ports, in several volumes, 1838-51]

Northcote, Vic :  the auhor, 1980-1982.

Hughes I. A.

Coastal passengers to Port Phillip.

Melbourne : the author, 1983-6

Kerr W.

Kerr's Melbourne almanac and Port Phillip directory for 1841, 1842

Melbourne: Kerr and Holmes, 1841, 1842

Kopitke E.

Emigrants from Hamburg to Australia, 1852.

Brisbane, Queensland Family History Society, c1996

Low F.

City of Sydney directory for 1844-5

Sydney 1844

Nicholson I. H.

Shipping arrivals and departures : Tasmania

Canberra : Roebuck,1983-1985

Nobbs R.

Norfolk Island and its first settlement 1788-1814.

Sydney : Library of Australian History, 1988

Sainty M. R. and Johnson K. A.

Index to births, marriages and funerals in the Sydney Morning Herald, 1831-1853

Sydney : the compilers, 1972

Statton J.

Biographical index of South Australians 1836-1885.

Marden, S. A. : South Australian Genealogy and Heraldry Society, 1986

General References (published lists of university graduates)

Alumni Dublinenses : a register of....Trinity College

London : Williams and Norgate, 1924

Anderson P. J.

Fasti academiae Mariscallanae Aberdonensis : selections from the records of the Marischal College and University 1593-1860.

Aberdeen : New Spalding Club, 1889-1898

University of Glasgow

Roll of the graduates of the University of Glasgow from 3lst December, 1727 to 3lst December, l897 : with short biographical notes, compiled by W. Innes Addison

Glasgow : the University, 1898