A researcher’s account by Dr Hugo Ree, PhD. FRCP I am a retired physician with experience in the field of tropical medicine. I came to Queensland with my family in 1987 to take over the post of government leprologist on the retirement of Dr Douglas Russell. I first came to the Queensland State Archives some […]
Do you remember visiting the school dental clinic? Many of us are familiar with clinics in classrooms or even mobile caravans, but did you know one of the first travelling dental clinics in Queensland was a rail car? The school dental scheme was developed by the Department of Public Instruction in the late 1920s. The […]
Discovering the heritage value of records at Queensland State Archives can be convoluted. This was the case when the State Library of Queensland Distant Lines exhibition prompted research into an esteemed military nurse who survived the First World War: Constance Mabel Keys. Born in Queensland in 1886, Sister Constance Mabel Keys became one of the […]
Born in St George, Sister Norma Violet Mowbray served as a staff nurse during the First World War with the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) leaving from Brisbane with the No 1 Australian General Hospital on board HMAT A55 Kyarra on 21 December 1914. Sadly, she died from pneumonia in Cairo on 21 January 1916 […]
This May marks the 87th anniversary of the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) The RFDS quickly became a lifeline for the people of outback Queensland and other remote areas. It was founded by Rev John Flynn, a minister with the Presbyterian Church with a vision to provide a ‘mantle of safety’ for people living in […]
Today nursing is a popular career choice for many school leavers but did you know that there was a shortage of nurses during and immediately after the Second World War? And so a campaign began to recruit women into the nursing profession. On 14 January 1946, Campbell Advertising submitted an advertising campaign of slides for […]
On 13 August 1914, soon after the official beginning of the First World War when Britain declared war on Germany, the Australian branch of the British Red Cross Society was formed. Melbourne’s Government House became the headquarters of the society led by the Governor-General’s wife, Lady Helen Munro Ferguson. Lady Ferguson enlisted the help of […]