George Cleghorn: Marlborough’s physician extraordinaire

DR PAUL DAVIDSON
President, Marlborough Historical Society

Recent acquisitions at Marlborough Museum have re-kindled interest in Blenheim’s first, and possibly finest, medical doctor – George Cleghorn.

Scotsman George arrived in New Zealand in 1876 as a 25-year-old house surgeon, and two years later was appointed medical officer at the newly established Wairau Hospital. He quickly gained a reputation as a skilled and innovative surgeon, believed to have performed New Zealand’s first appendectomy.  His concern for his community often extended to arranging physical and mental health treatment at no charge for any who could not afford it, especially for the generally very poor Maori people of Wairau Pa at the time.

One of his most innovative moves was the building of a secure Fever Ward in the hospital grounds, inspired by the dangers of malaria and a typhoid epidemic in 1899. That building survives, being removed and restored in 2006 to become one of the most historic buildings in Brayshaw Heritage Park.  In 1900 Cleghorn became quite ill and gave up his practice, much to the dismay of the people of Marlborough. The community showed their appreciation by donating a huge amount (for the time) and presenting George and Helen Cleghorn with 300 gold sovereigns,  a beautiful illuminated address and a carved sideboard surfaced with 40 genuine Delft porcelain tiles. The illuminated address has been in Marlborough Museum for some time, and was recently joined by the Delft sideboard, generously donated by his Pukekohe based great-niece Ann Anderson.

A newspaper of the time recorded - “The peer of the rich, the friend of the poor, he was as kind as he was skilful, and on the day of his departure from Blenheim he deservedly received the most flattering send-off ever accorded to anyone by the people of Marlborough”.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cleghorn

The local Maori people also honoured him with a traditional feather cloak. In 1913 the family loaned this cloak to the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford.  It was intended as a loan, but World War 1 intervened and the cloak has never returned.

George Cleghorn is remembered here by the Cleghorn Rotunda, long a centrepiece of Blenheim’s Market Square, and the Redwoodtown street that bears his name. The Delft sideboard and other memorabilia now grace the foyer of Marlborough Museum, just a short distance from his historic Fever Ward.  They are worth coming to see.