Dr Gilbert Brown

Dr Gilbert Brown was responsible for the suggestion that a Section of Anaesthetics be included in the program for the Australian Medical Congress (BMA) of 1929 in Sydney, and he was ultimately the President of the Section. In his Embley Memorial Lecture in 1939 Brown outlined his idea of the organisation of anaesthesia in Australia, which included a professorial department at each university and a department of anaesthetics at each hospital. In 1939 these ideas were far in advance of their time, but he lived to see some implementation of them. When the Faculty was inaugurated in 1952, Gilbert Brown became a Foundation Fellow, and in 1954 his services to anaesthetics were recognised by Her Majesty the Queen, when he became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Dr Brown's death on 6th January, 1960, after a long illness, saddened the whole Society. His memory is preserved in the Gilbert Brown Award, the Society's highest honour, awarded for outstanding services to the Society and to anaesthesia in Australia.

Dr Geoffrey Kaye

Dr Geoffrey Kaye was born on 9th April, 1903. He was educated in England and graduated in medicine from the University of Melbourne in 1926. He became an MD of Melbourne University in 1929, was awarded the English Diploma in Anaesthetics in 1939, and was elected to Fellowship of the English Faculty of Anaesthetists in 1949. He became a Life Member of the ASA in 1964.

Dr Kaye's great interest in anaesthetic apparatus, which was to lead to inauguration of the unique museum which bears his name, seems to have begun with his visit to Toledo, Ohio, in 1930, when he attended a postgraduate course with Dr E.I. McKesson, in which engineering techniques were featured. From this time, until his death in 1986, he maintained an engineering workshop at his home. In this workshop he prepared sections of apparatus in accordance with what he terms his "philosophy of museums". In his own words, "Avoid the Cabinet of Curios; display selected modern apparatus, intact and sectioned, with historical apparatus as a background; provide a written physiological critique of each exhibit; keep the unshewn exhibits (? 90% of the whole) in vaults, arranged systematically for the senior student".

Dr Gilbert Troup

Gilbert Troup was later a Founder Fellow of the Australasian Faculty, having been a member of the Interim Board which instituted the Faculty. He was elected as a Fellow of the English Faculty in 1950, and he gave the 1954 Embley Memorial Lecture.

Dr Gilbert Troup died in 1962 and his contributions to the Society and to anaesthesia in Australia are commemorated by the Gilbert Troup prize, awarded annually by the Society.

Dr Harry Daly

Harry Daly was born on 3rd of August, 1893, and died on 19th June, 1980.

In 1969 the Australasian Faculty awarded him the prestigious Orton Medal, bestowed rarely, for distinguished services to anaesthetics in Australia. In 1970 he was admitted to Honorary Fellowship of the Faculty and in 1973 became the first anaesthetist admitted to Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

If Gilbert Brown was the father of Australian anaesthetics, Harry lived to become its patriarch.

Dr Ivor Hotten

Dr Ivor Hotten was appointed as Honorary Anaesthetist to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, in 1930, and became the hospital's tutor in anaesthetics in that same year. He later was appointed as the Lecurer in Anaesthetics to the University of Sydney, and taught generations of medical students the basic principles of anaesthesia.

Dr Hotten was a founder member of the Society and, in 1952, a Foundation Fellow of the Faculty. He was elected to Fellowship of the English Faculty in 1951. When the Section of Anaesthetics, NSW Branch of the BMA, was inaugurated in 1934, Ivor Hotten was the first President of the Section.

During his long years of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, Dr Hotten has made a notable contribution to the development of anaesthesia in Australia.

(Photograph taken at the Australasian Medical Congress (BMA), Hobart, 1934. Centre, Dr, Ivor Hotten, one of the founders of the Australian Society of Anaesthetists).

Dr G. Leonard Lillies

He was a member of the first section of Anaesthetics BMA, formed within the Victorian Branch of the BMA in December 1929, and in 1933 was President of the Section. In this capacity he was invited to become President of the Section of Anaesthetics at the forthcoming Australasian Medical Congress (BMA) in Hobart in 1934.

With Geoffrey Kaye and the other members of the anaesthetic staff at the Alfred Hospital he was a collaborator in the writing of the book Practical Anaesthesia, the first Australian text on anaesthetics, published in 1932. Dr Lillies was particularly involved in the chapter on gaseous anaesthetics, since he had introduced the use of ethylene in Victoria in 1924 and had contributed several articles on ethylene to the Medical Journal of Australia.

Dr Lillies died on 3rd March, 1965.

Dr Cedric Duncombe

Dr Duncombe graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1922 and was for some time in practice at Broken Hill, New South Wales, until departing for study in England, where he gained his FRCS Edinburgh in 1929. Upon his return he settled in general practice in Hobart and was appointed as an honorary surgeon to the Royal Hobart Hospital. In practice, of necessity in those days, he gave some anaesthetics and also gained experience in midwifery, but his main interests were surgical.

This is Hadley's Hotel, Hobart Tasmania , where the small group of seven founded the Australian Society of Anaesthetists.