Australian Dictionary of Biography

John Smith Purdy (1872-1936), by unknown photographer

Australian War Memorial, H00086

John Smith Purdy (1872-1936), health officer and soldier, was born on 31 January 1872 at Morpeth, Northumberland, England, son of George Purdy, market gardener, and his wife Frances, née Smith. He was an exhibitioner and school captain at the Grammar School of King Edward VI, Morpeth, before studying medicine at Marischal College, University of Aberdeen (M.B., C.M., 1898; M.D., 1904). He soon joined his older brother James in New Zealand and was briefly surgeon at Otaki hospital. In January 1901 he went to the South African War as surgeon-captain in the 6th and 10th New Zealand Mounted Rifles.

Demobilized in England, after working in various London hospitals Purdy obtained the diploma of public health (Cambridge, 1903) and his Aberdeen M.D. for a thesis on the treatment of syphilis. On 1 December 1904 in London, he married Emily Crake, daughter of a leather merchant. Briefly in general practice at Liverpool, he joined the Quarantine Service of Egypt as Foreign Office nominee in 1905. In Cairo he was associated with Dr E. T. Ross and his anti-malaria work. Next year he was in charge of the quarantine hospitals at El Tor, Sinai, for pilgrims returning from Mecca.

Returning to New Zealand in February 1907, Purdy was district medical officer, Auckland, but, seeing no future in New Zealand in competition with his brother, became chief health officer in Tasmania in 1910. He helped to have food laws and inspections stiffened. In 1913 he was appointed jointly metropolitan medical officer of health in Sydney, responsible to the chief medical officer J. A. Thompson, and city health officer, responsible to the Sydney Municipal Council.

Enlisting in the Australian Imperial Force in August 1914, Major Purdy sailed with the 1st Division, serving with the Australian Army Medical Corps as specialist sanitary officer for the Australian forces in Egypt in 1915 and, promoted lieutenant-colonel on 1 January 1916, at the 3rd Australian General Hospital, in charge of sanitation at Tel-el-Kebir, a camp of over 30,000 Australians and New Zealanders. From October he commanded the 10th Field Ambulance and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for conspicuous gallantry in tending the sick and wounded at Messines, Belgium, in mid-1917. Having been mentioned in dispatches, he commanded (as temporary colonel) the 3rd A.G.H., Abbeville, France, from January to June 1918.

Back in Sydney in September, Purdy used his military experience in the campaigns against the influenza pandemic of 1919 and two minor outbreaks of plague next year. From 1919 he lectured on sanitary law at Sydney Technical College. Otherwise his duties were primarily administrative, dealing with established public health services of the traditional sanitation type. In his annual reports as city health officer to the Sydney Municipal Council he emphasized his activities in slum clearance and provision of a healthier city. He was particularly proud of Sydney's falling death rate which he attributed mainly to improved sanitation and purity of foodstuffs. He published over twenty articles, mainly in the Transactions of the Australian Medical Congress, the Australasian Medical Gazette and the Medical Journal of Australia. As president of the Health Society of New South Wales in 1921, he inaugurated Health Week and remained chairman of its committee until 1936. He was also chairman of the Public Health Association of New South Wales, president of the Australian Association for Fighting Venereal Disease and of the Town Planning Association of New South Wales, and influential in formulating slum clearance programmes.

Purdy retained links with the Australian Army Medical Service, transferring to the reserve as colonel in 1932. Active in the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia, he was State president in 1929. He also devoted much time to the Boy Scouts' Association, receiving its Silver Wolf badge from Lord Baden Powell, and to the St John Ambulance Association; its deputy chairman, he was an honorary associate of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1911), the Royal Geographical Society of London (1903-09), the Royal Sanitary Institute, London (1915), and of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, England (1930) and was awarded the French Médaille d'honneur des epidémies in 1933.

Remembered by his colleagues as austere, sincere and dedicated, he was engrossed in public health and remote from his colleagues in general practice. A member of the Imperial Service Club, Sydney, he lived at Bellevue Hill. He died in St Luke's Hospital on 26 July 1936 and was cremated with Anglican rites. His wife, two sons and a daughter survived him: his elder son Cecil became a notable chess-player.