JOHN WOODFORDE1
MARK SHEPPARD
Adelaide
I SUPPOSE the most formidable task facing the President
each year is the preparation of this address. It seemed to me
that the problems facing us today have been so well covered
by addresses in recent years that it would be wise to play safe
and choose an historical subject. This I have done; it concerns
the first doctor to practice medicine in this State, who died in a
house just down the street from here 100 years ago. Having
done this, of course, I was unable to resist adding a few of my
own thoughts on current problems, which have been
crystallizing in my mind after discussion with many doctors,
of all disciplines, throughout the State.
My subject is John Woodforde, close personal friend and
physician of Colonel William Light, the founder of the City of
Adelaide. Born in England in 1810, he was the son of another
John Woodforde, M.R.C.S., a practising physician at
Bridgewater, and the grandson of Robert Woodforde, a naval
surgeon. Before this, he descended from a long line of divines.
According to A. A. Lendon, another ancestor was William
Woodforde, Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford at about
the turn of the seventeenth century. It seems to have been a
tradition in the Woodforde family to keep a detailed diary, and
in 1933, an exhibition was held in London of diaries and
letters belonging to several generations of the Woodforde
family, going back to the second half of the seventeenth
century.
John Woodforde obtained his licentiate of the Society of
Apothecaries in 1832, after serving an apprenticeship of five
years with his father. After graduation, he spent some time
travelling in the Middle East, and in 1834, when Colonel
Light was serving as second in command to Captain
Hindmarsh on the ship Nile in the service of the Pasha of
Egypt, he met Light on several occasions. Early in 1836, when
Colonel Light was appointed Surveyor-General to the new
Colony, he chose his friend, Dr. Woodforde, as his ship's
surgeon. They sailed on May 1, IS'SG, in the brig Rapid, a
vessel of 162 tons, the sixth ship to be dispatched to South
Australia, and commanded by .Colonel Light, himself a
master mariner. She carried as ^passengers a party of
surveyors, a few labourers, and two women, one of whom was
Light's friend, Maria Gandy.
VSletiring president's address, read at the annual meeting of-."thte
South (Australian Branch of the Australian Medical Association on-
June 29, 19(5(5..,
Woodforde followed the family tradition of keeping an
accurate and detailed diary, and to this diary we owe many of
the details of the voyage, and of the early days in Kangaroo
Island and the new Colony.
The Rapid was a very happy ship, Colonel Light being
described by Pullen, one of the surveyors, as a "most talented,
and indefatigable officer, and universally beloved". Pullen
says of Woodforde: " . . . poor doctor, sick nearly the whole
way, yet he used to join in all the mad pranks we used to
play." William Jacob, a young surveyor, was a special friend
of Woodforde's, and he also kept a diary of great historical
interest. On arrival at Kangaroo Island, Woodforde indulged
in his favourite sport of shooting and made several excursions
with Jacob, providing a very welcome addition to the larder
after their long course of ship's fare. He was very unimpressed
with Kangaroo Island, finding it "very hot, with no fresh water
and abounding with mosquitoes". "I hope to God", he writes,
"we shall find better cheer when we visit the main; this is
dreary enough, and I begin to sigh for old England with all
her faults, and all the dear friends I have left there." However,
he thoroughly enjoyed a wedding aboard the John Pirie,
which "wound up with one or two amicable fights in which
the bride and bridegroom were conspicious".
After a fortnight, the Rapid sailed for the mainland, landing
at a little bay south of Cape Jervis, which Light named Rapid
Bay. Woodforde was one of the first .ashore, eager to explore
the mainland with which he was tremendously impressed, and
while Light made an initial survey, he explored the
surrounding area, shooting his first kangaroo. After a week,
they sailed up the coast in search of the river which had been
described by Captain Jones, a whaler who, in the winter of
1833, had sailed up the St. Vincent Gulf in the Henry, a
schooner of 55 tons. This river (later named the Port River)
had also i)een observed by Captain Barker from the top of Mt
Lofty in 1831, shortly before his murder by natives at the
mouth of the Murray. They found the river, and Woodforde,
Jacob and Lieutenant Field explored Torrens Island. They
found the north arm of the river, but the south arm was not
easily discernible, owing to an overgrowth of mangroves.
As Woodforde was worried about the lack of fresh food, and
as some of the crew were suffering from scurvy,
Page 54
they ran back to Rapid Bay, anchoring overnight in a south-
westerly blow, in a bay with a stream running into it. This
they named Holdfast Bay. Woodforde went ashore, and he
describes the great variety of bird life with which the stream
was swarming.
Woodforde's appointment as surgeon to the Rapid having
expired, Light offered him the post of Surgeon to the Survey
Department at Rapid Bay, at a salary of 60 a year; and he
remained there with half the survey party, while Light with
the other half went on to Holdfast Bay, leaving Maria Gandy
under Woodforde's care. We get several glimpses of Maria
from Woodforde's diary. She was a young woman of great
courage, obviously devoted to Light. She had withstood the
discomforts of a tiny ship in all weathers, and was now
enduring the flies and heat, of Rapid Bay without complaint.
Woodforde had a great admiration for her, and was to remain a
close friend until her death from tuberculosis, which she con-
tracted while' nursing Light, in 1847.
He had little medical work to do at Rapid Bay; but it was
here that he delivered the first baby to be born to a white
woman on the mainland of South Australia, and, at his
request, the child was christened "Rapid".
He was not present at the proclamation of the Colony, for
on January 2, 1837, he delivered Mrs Finnis, the wife of his
surveyor friend, for which attention he was delighted to
receive a fee of three guineas. Owing to a breast abscess, she
was unable to be moved to Holdfast Bay until January 23.
Here he pitched a tent, and we read of him walking up to
Adelaide with Finnis and Jacob to see Colonel Light and
Maria, "where they met with as much kindness and attention
as ever". However, to quote Jacob, they found Light "almost
worried out of his life by the different people, some wanting
this, some that, and all wanting and expecting impossibilities,
complaining of the anchorage, the creek and the town being
six miles distant; from the harbour".
Light was indeed having his troubles, for although the
Commissioners had entrusted him with the decision for fixing
the site of the capital, his decision was bitterly opposed,
especially by Hindmarsh, who at first wanted Port Lincoln,
and then a site nearer the coast. Woodforde actively
supported Light during this troublesome time, and writes:
In the selection of the site for the town, Colonel Light has
shown great judgement and firmness. There are many
discontented, who are compelled by envy to find fault with
his choice. It appears to me, that there is nothing to wish for
in the selection, as the soil is. excellent, the pastures fine, and
abundance of fine water from the lagoons and rivers. The
Town is on a gentle eminence in the midst of a beautiful
plain. Our prospects are very cheering and I am confident
that they will continue so under the able guidance of Colonel
Light.
Despite this controversy and his poor health, Light pushed on
with the town survey, and completed this in just under two
months. Lots were drawn for the town acres, and Woodforde
describes how everything went smoothly till the end, "when
some wrangling ensued between the Governor and Samuel
Stephens, when the latter very politely told the Governor he
was no gentleman, upon which the Governor threatened to put
him in custody".
Immediately after his arrival in Adelaide, Woodforde set up
practice, at first sharing a tent with Jacob in "Buffalo Row", on
the South Bank of the Torrens near the site of the present gaol.
One of his first patients was Surgeon Jackson, of H.M.S.
Buffalo, taken suddenly ill with determination of blood to the
head; he bled him and stayed with him all night in the Colonial
Chaplain's hutwhich apparently was curative.
The impression one gains from his diary is of a determined,
adventurous, but rather aggressive character, given at times to
outbursts of temper. Beneath these characteristics was an
intense loyalty to his friends of the survey party, and a very
real concern for the health and well-being of those entrusted to
his care. Perhaps he could
OCTOBER 29, 1966
be forgiven for his tempers, for the primitive conditions were
very trying, and they were nearly suffocated in the tent by the
dust and smoke.
By 1842, he had leased the acre on the south corner of King
William and Hindley Streets, where his first residence was a
hut 14 ft. by 9 ft. in area, with pine walls, imitation stonework,
and a reed roof. Later he erected a more ambitious cottage
with a picket fence, and a side door in Gilbert Place for his
patients. Some years later, when the house was pulled down,
some excitement was created by the discovery of some
skeletons in the cellar; the sensational newspapers- suggested
a link between these and the disappearance of some former
patients, but the authorities were satisfied that they were
merely used to keep up his knowledge of osteology.
J. Miller Anderson, whose store was nearly opposite
Woodforde's house, records that he was a "tall, ruddy-faced
man, somewhat military in appearance, and was often to be
seen of an evening patrolling the street with a huge
meerschaum pipe in his mouth. He was brusque in manner,
and indeed one had to be careful what one said or there might
be a rough sort of answer".
Woodforde was Light's closest friend during this early
period of the Colony, keeping a close watch on his medical
condition and often accompanying him on surveying expedi-
tions. By the time of his arrival in South Australia, Light was
suffering from advanced tuberculosis, and had been for some
years tormented by attacks of gout. This, combined with the
exhaustion of the surveys carried out entirely on foot; by the
worry occasioned by the bitter opposition of Hindmarsh and
Stevenson and their party; and by what he considered his
betrayal by the Commissioners; led to a complete breakdown
in his health. In July, 1838, he resigned as Surveyor-General,
and the whole Survey Department, including Woodforde,
Jacob and Finnis, resigned in his support, refusing to serve
under the incompetent Kingston.
Light retired to "Theberton House", where, in the presence
of Woodforde, Finnis and Maria Gandy, he died on October 6,
1839. In his will, he asked Woodforde to assist Maria, who
was his sole beneficiary. It may be of interest to relate that
Maria Gandy continued to live under Woodforde's protection
until 1840, when she married Dr George Mayo, who had
arrived in South Australia in 1837. Woodforde and Mayo were
personal friends and closely associated professionally. It is
singularly appropriate, therefore, that the adjacent medical
buildings in Ward Street, North Adelaide, just across the road
from where Woodforde lived and died, should perpetuate the
names of those two medical pioneers.
Woodforde continued to practise at Hindley Street until
1863, and built up a large general practice, being particularly
interested in midwifery. Dr A. A. Lendon records that in very
rough weather, on the night of August 1, 1851, he was called
to deliver a baby at Fullarton, the mother being a patient of Dr
Mayo's, who was temporarily absent.
Hastily donning jack-boots and a great-coat, Dr.
Woodforde started on horseback with his guide. But it was a
desperately dark, stormy night, and the roadway became too
dangerous for riding. He was obliged to dismount and lead
his horse, carefully avoiding the huge stump holes of
grubbed up gum-roots, now full of water, which he finally
succeeded in doing, and arrived safely for the event.
This event has some significance for us, for the baby was later
to became Sir Joseph Verco.
In 1844, the Medical Board was formed, and Woodforde was
invited by the Governor to become a member. The members
proceeded to register themselves, and his name appears as the
fifth on the roll.
In 1856, he was appointed City Coroner, which position he
held for 10 years until his death. Perusal of old records
suggests that he was an able and efficient coroner.
Woodforde married Caroline Carter, a Quaker, in Trinity
Church in 1838. She came out in the Buffalo under the
guardianship of Colonial Chaplain and Mrs Howard. There
 THE MKDICAL JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIA
OCTOBER 29, 1966 SUPPLEMENT
were eight children of the marriage, his eldest son, John,
inheriting his adventurous spirit and accompanying McDouall
Stuart on two of his expeditions, on one of which a creek in the
Reynolds Ranges was named after Dr. A. Woodforde.
After leaving Hindl-ey Street in 1863, Woodforde lived Cor
a while in Mitcham, and then moved to the house later
occupied by Dr. Harry Swift in Brougham Place. The
property also included the land on which the Hotel Australia
and Mr. Lendon's house now stand, and part of the original
wall can be seen at the back of this house. He died there in
1866 from heart disease, at the age of 56 years.
Although little is known of Woodforde's early life, his
family background and his obvious literary ability suggest a
thorough classical' education. His medical training consisted
of apprenticeship to a country doctor for five years, followed
by lectures and hospital training, which appears to have been
the pattern of medical education of that day.
One gains the very definite impression from reading of the
lives of these pioneer doctorsmen like Woodforde, Wright,
Mayo, Gotten and Wyattthat, despite the appalling
conditions under which they practised, they were able to cope
with their problems with confidence. It is obvious from
Woodforde's diary that, even at the age of 27 years, he was
very practised at dealing with people and their personal
problems, and a keen judge of human nature. As was pointed
out by Sir Henry Ayers, the essential qualities of these
pioneers were their courage, their self-discipline, and the
ability to drive themselves to the limits of exhaustion. These
qualities Woodforde certainly had in large measure. He also
had strong moral convictions, and there is no doubt that he
and his contemporaries were family doctors of the highest
quality, who set out to provide the best service possible under
prevailing conditions.
As you are well aware, one of the problems facing us today
in our effort to provide a first-class medical service is the lack
of desire of most of our young graduates to seek vocations as
family doctorsespecially in the country. Despite the fact
that the quality of teaching in our medical school has never
been higher, it is, I think, generally agreed that the student is
being orientated towards choosing a specialty as a career.
This would appear to be a logical and natural result of the
emphasis on a scientific background and scientific methods in
medicine today, and of the absence of contact of the medical
student with general practitioners.
Perhaps it is reflection on our times that, with our
astonishing technical advances in the scientific field, we lag
so far behind in the field of human understanding that we are
forced to admit that we possess no better method of selection
of medical students than that based on a scientific
matriculation examination. Moreover, the emphasis on
science for entry to the medical course is excluding many
imaginative and intelligent people with a classical
background. Surely a more balanced secondary education,
including more of what we now like to call the "humanities",
would provide a sounder basis for the understanding of human
behaviour, and this could be reinforced by the reduction of
scientific detail in the first university year. The first-year
course done by my daughter in social studies, I am certain,
was far more suitable for the future doctor than the first-year
course my son did in medicine.
It is obviously impossible to return to the apprenticeship
system of Woodforde's day; but some increased contact with a
family doctor (and in the environment of general practice)
would appear to be desirable fairly early in the student's
career, so that he has the opportunity of gaining a more
balanced overall view of the practice of medicine. It would
also appear to be important that some of this apprenticeship
should be served in a country practice, where the peculiar
problems facing the practitioner create a special challenge.
The student should be given the opportunity of seeing how
different this personal approach to. medicine Is from the team
approach, which
Page 55
is so essential in the management of patients with major
disease or trauma in a teaching hospital. But more than this is
necessary if we are to encourage young doctors to undertake
country general practice.
At the present time, the young graduate is, I believe, very
rightly trained to use modern scientific aids and to seek
specialist help when out of his depth. Without these facilities,
he feels medically insecure and lacking in confidence.
Moreover, country people are demanding, and have the right to
expect the very best that medicine has to offer. If, therefore,
the young graduate is to be expected to practise efficiently and
with confidence in the country, it means that diagnostic aids
and specialist services must be readily available in all parts of
the State, with all that this impliesfirst-class base hospitals
and good resuscitation and pathological facilities. A
comprehensive medical service is now being supplied in Mt.
Gambier, and to a lesser degree in some of the larger northern
centres; but the majority of country areas are very
inadequately covered for specialist services. There is welcome
evidence that certain individual efforts are being made to do
something about this, especially in regard to the provision of
surgical and pathological services. However, much more needs
to be done, and I believe it is essential that efforts directed to
improving this country service must be coordinated by some
central authority. The problem must be tackled energetically,
and I believe the A.M.A. should take the lead. Possibly the
coordinating authority should consist of a committee
composed of representatives of the A.M.A., country
practitioners, the Royal Colleges and the Australian College of
General Practitioners, the Postgraduate Committee and
University teaching staff. This committee could inquire into all
aspects of country practice and make recommendations to the
appropriate authorities, including the Government, Perhaps, as
a result of these recommendations, a coordinated plan could be
formulated. One might speculate on such a plan, involving a
number of independent hospital groups, each one providing a
comprehensive medical service. Such a group would consist of
a base hospital with specialist and ancillary services in the
larger centre, working in conjunction with small, well-
equipped satellite hospitals. Such a group hospital system
would need central control for it to act efficiently as a single
unit, which could lessen the responsibility of local hospital
boards, and even close some of the smaller hospitals in towns
with dwindling populations, where it is difficult to support a
doctor or achieve the staffing of these by experienced nurses.
Rapid transport (which could be by helicopter as is now
common practice in the more remote provinces of Canada)
would transport the patient with very major disease or trauma
to the base hospital or the specialist to the satellite hospital, the
aim being to treat as many patients as possible in their home
town.
This would involve the active cooperation of all the doctors
in the group, especially those placed more favourably in the
bigger centres, in a combined effort to provide the very best
medical service, and to reduce the heavy load on the single-
man practitioner in a town with only one doctor.
Recently I was privileged to observe in action a course in
anaesthesia organized by the Postgraduate Committee in the
south-east. This was a tremendous success, owing to the
enthusiasm and excellent teaching of Dr. Maurice Sandp, the
Director of Anaesthesia at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. He
was able to examine and advise on anaesthetic equipment in
the Mt Gambier and surroundings hospitals, and give practical
demonstrations of anaesthesia in difficult cases. What is to me
most significant was his statement that it had opened his eyes
to the needs of the practitioners in this area, and that he felt he
had gained a great deal of information which would be
valuable to him in the training of medical students. Surely this
would apply equally to other disciplines.
Young specialists could be encouraged to spend a few years
in such a country group before being appointed to a teaching
hospital, it being clearly understood that
 THE MEDICAL JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIA
Page 56 SUPPLEMENT OCTOBER 29, 1966

such experience would enhance, rather than hinder, their
chances of selection to the staff of a teaching hospital. IMs
would provide our future teachers with a balanced view of the
medical 'needs of the State and the problems of the -family
doctor, and also provide the service which is being
increasingly demanded by the country community.
I have wandered rather further than I intended from the
subject of this address. However, I feel that Woodforde and
his colleagues faced a similar problem under vastly
-greater difficulties than ourshow to provide an efficient
medical .servicerand they certainly tackled it with vigor .and
energy. I wonder -what Woodforde would have thought .of the
present situation. If he was asked his ideas, if he did not give &
rough sort of answer, it would certainly be 3. blunt one.
Perhaps he would say: "I don't know much about your science
and your scientific methods, but I suppose yo.u must .have
them and I suppose you must choose most of your future
doctors from the ranks of
those who top the examinations; .but at least reserve a few
places for your classical scholars, And your potential .leaders,
even though they're not -academically brilliant. And when
you're training them, for goodness sake give
them a chance to see what is going on in the hurly-burly of
practical family and patient care, in the patient's home and
the doctor's surgery. What you need are doctors who can
cope with the situation wherever they may be; but if your
medicine is so specialized and you want them to go out and
provide a really good country service, you must provide
them with specialists and first-class hospital facilities. Your
country practitioners rank with the best in the world, but
many of them are practising under very difficult conditions
and you must do something to correct this state of affairs."
So perhaps in the end we might turn to John Woodforde
and his contemporaries for guidance. Their courage, vision
and energy, and their quality of service, have set an example
we should do well to heed. We must never let pursuit of
knowledge and personal status obscure the ideals which
inspired our pioneers, and which no doubt activated the
efforts of John Woodforde, our first family doctor. The only
way in which we, as doctors, .can repay our debt to them is
by providing the best medical service of which we are
capable throughout the whole of the State.

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