OBITUARY

Northern Advocate, 14 March 1944, Page 4

OBITUARY

Dr. Ventry Smith

With the death of Dr. Ventry Smith on March 10, there passed from the community a man whose long' years of work in Whangai’ei have tended to overshadow his very coloui’ful life elsewhere.

Born at Blackrock, Dublin, Ireland, on June 8, 1859, he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, qualifying in surgery at Ihe age of 21 and taking his degree in medicine at Edinburgh a year later. Having a keen desire to see the world, he joined the P. and O. service as ship’s surgeon, making many voyages to India, Malaya, China, Japan and the East generally. In 1888 he settled in Australia, practising at Murrumburrah, and later becoming senior surgeon and Government medical officer at Grafton, New South Wales, for 15 years. Following this, he came to New Zealand and took up practice in Whangarei. On the outbreak of the Great War he volunteered for active service overseas, but was retained in New Zealand by the authorities and appointed senior medical officer for Northland. His thoroughness and accuracy in that connection earned for him the highest praise from official circles. Throughout his long life it was his invariable custom every fifth year to return to London and the Continent to take a refresher course, preferring, with his love for the life and the sea, to travel as ship’s medical officer. Those who knew Dr. Ventry Smith —and they are many—will not forget his sympathetic and ready attendance to any call, and, in particular, his strenuous labours during the great epidemic of 1918, in which his experience of plague in the East and on the Australian coast were invaluable.

During the earlier years he was a keen yachting and fishing enthusiast, and his deep-keeler, the N'gahau, was well known in Whangarei harbour and along the coast. Dr. Ventry Smith was known in all the district to which Whangarei serves as centre, having practised here for 27 years until, as the result of an operation, he was compelled to give up the work he loved, and lived in quiet retirement until the end in his 85th year. He is survived by his wife, four daughters—Mesdames K. Peters. I. Hill (Auckland), F. Watters and R. Gray (Whangarei)—and one son, Mr. B. Ventry Smith, of Tuai.