DR BELLA M'CALLUM

Evening Star, Issue 19521, 31 March 1927, Page 2

DR BELLA M'CALLUM

HER DEATH ANNOUNCED News has recently been received (says the 1 Lyttelton Times ’) of the death of Dr Bella D. M'Callum, wife of Professor P. M'Callum, of the department of pathology in the University of Melbourne.

| As Bella D. Cross, the late Mrs M'Callum was well known to the students of Canterbury College from 1904 to 1910. She had previously attended the Tiraaru Girls’ High School, where she had been dux of the school, and she commenced her college career | by gaining a junior university scholarj ship. She completed her B.A, degree in 1903, and then proceeded to the ■ M.A. in botany, preparing a thesis on ‘ Observations on Some New Zealand Halophytes.’ For this she was awarded first class honors by the examiner in England, Sir Isaac Bayley Balfour, of Edinburgh University. Soon afterwards sho gained a Government research scholarship, and remained at the college for some time preparing an elaborate report on the varieties of phormium, the New Zealand flax. Endowed with a bright and charming manner she was throughout a favorite with her fellow students, in whose sports she took a prominent part, particularly xcelling in tennis. She frequently played with Mr L. S. Jennings, and the two won the combined doubles in the Easter collegiate tournaments on more than one occasion.

Later on she married Mr Jennings, and a happy life seemed to open for the well-matched pair. But the Great War intervened. Mr Jennings, who had been teaching at the Waitaki Boys’ High School, went to the front as Lieutenant Jennings, and was soon promoted to bo captain. He was Idled at the Somme in 1916. Mrs Jennings, who was at that time on the staff of the New Plymouth Girls’ High School, had to give up her position owing to domestic circumstance.?. After this Mrs Jennings returned to Canterbury College for some months, during which time she completed a research on New Zealand Cirripedia (or barnacles), which had been left unfinished _by Captain Jennings. At the same time she perfected and completed her own research on phormium, and submitted it as a thesis for the D.Sc. degree. The English examiner, Professor Harvey Gibson, of Liverpool University, reported very favorably on it, and Mrs Jennings thus became the first woman to gain the Doctor of Science degree in the University of New Zealand, \

Not content with these honors' and achievements, Mrs Jennings sought• further distinctions, and as soon as possible after the armistice she secured a passage to England. She studied bacteriology and allied subjects for some time at Cambridge, and later on at Edinburgh University, where she was appointed demonstrator to the medical and agricultural classes by Sir I. Beyley Balfour, being the first woman to net as demonstrator in the University of Edinburgh. Meanwhile Mr P. M'Callura, a contemporary at Canterbury College with Miss Cross, - who had taken honors in zoology, had proceeded to Edinburgh, where ho gained his medical degree with great distinction. He saw service in the Medical Corps during the war, i and after a short visit to Now Zealand at the end of 1918 returned to Edinburgh, where he was appointed lecturer 1 in pathology at the University, .and demonstrated in pathology at the Royal Infirmary. Dr M‘Callum_ and Dr Bella Jennings were married at St. Giles’s Cathedral towards the end of 1919. Dr M'Calhfm was appointed in 1925 to tho very important position of professor of pathology at the University of Melbourne.