Sir Alexander Gillies

Press, 22 February 1982, Page 5

Sir Alexander Gillies

PA Wellington New Zealand’s pioneer orthopaedic surgeon, Sir Alexander Gillies, the cofounder of the Crippled Children Society, has died in Wellington. He was 90. Sir Alexander was the first orthopaedic surgeon in New Zealand to undertake hip replacement surgery and in 1935, in conjunction with Rotary, he founded the Crippled Children •Society. Hundreds of people with birth defects had benefited from his great knowledge and skill, said the publicity officer of the society, Mrs Jean Phipps, yesterday. “Sir Alexander has been an innovative orthopaedic 1 surgeon and an energetic and caring New Zealander who will be sadly missed by the hundreds of people who knew and respected him professionally as well as the many friends he made throughout the world.” Sir Alexander was born and educated in Dunedin. He served with the New Zealand Mounted . Rifles in Egypt,

Palestine, and Syria in World War I and in 1919 was awarded the N.Z.E.F. scholarship to the University of Edinburgh. After working in hospitals at Owestry and Liverpool, he returned to Edinburgh to the Royal Infirmary before moving to the Mayo Clinic in the United States. In 1928 and 1929 he was head orthopaedic surgeon at the Lockwood clinic in Toronto and late in 1929 he returned to New Zealand to become senior orthopaedic surgeon at Wellington Hospital, a post he held for 30 years. . ■ •' ' Sir Alexander became Dominion, presidentthe Crippled Children Society in 1966 and was made a life member in 1975. He was national president of the New Zealand Red Cross Society from 1953 to 1961, when he became a counsellor of honour. Among his other personal achievements were the founding of the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association in

1950: 30 years as a member of the Physiotherapy Board until 1970; an examiner and member of the board of censors for the Royal Australian College of Surgeons: an emeritus fellowship of the British Orthopaedic Association; and membership of the International Society of Orthopaedic Surgery. s He also founded the Association of Health, Physical Education and Welfare. later becoming its patron; was a past president of the Wellington branch of the English Speaking Union; and was deputy life governor of the Otago Boys’ High School Old Boys' Society. Sir Alexander married Miss Effie Shaw, a Canadian, in Glasgow in 1920. Their two daughters, Annette and Jane, both died of a rare blood disease, the latter at the age of 16. Miss Annette Gillies practised as a general practitioner in Lower Hutt and died in 1977. Sir Alexander is survived by his second wife, Lady Joan Gillies.