DR JAMES YOUNG

Southland Times, Issue 24106, 20 April 1940, Page 10

DR JAMES YOUNG

AN APPRECIATION (By A.M.R.) To many who passed up and down Don street a few years ago, a brass plate reading “James Young, M.D.” had been a familiar landmark for long years. There stood the home of James Young, a rather dignified two-storied old-fashioned wooden house with a square porch, not much to look at, but inside full of art treasures, pictures, and a - library that any book-lover would covet. The house is no more, and at present the new Law Courts are slowly rising on the site. Dr Young came to New Zealand as a very young man after a brilliant career at Dublin University. He originally intended to settle in Auckland, but something prompted him to apply for the position of medical superintendent of the Wallace and Fiord Hospital at Riverton, and his application was accepted. To make himself look older and more suited to his position, he had grown a short, pointed beard, and with top hat and tailed coat looked more like a Harley street specialist than a general practitioner in a small country town. However, he soon discarded these formal clothes and the beard and adapted himself very quickly to colonial conditions. He had a very big district to cover, and his gig and spanking pair of dapple greys were a familiar sight on the roads far into the back country. He was loved and respected by all grades of society, and especially by his old countrymen. “Sure, he was the doctor,” and his word was law.

After leaving Riverton and before settling in Invercargill, he was for a few years in charge of the mental hospital in Auckland. From there he came to Invercargill and for close on 40 years our town was the richer for having one of the most gifted men of his time. He was a particularly clever diagnostician, and though patients sometimes felt disappointed when he called and strolled round the room, looking at pictures and picking up books in a seemingly careless way, nevertheless nothing much ever escaped those keen blue eyes and clever brain. He died in London a week or so ago, in his eighty-fourth year, and those who visited him not many months ago found the same gay spirit and unimpaired faculties. Let us bow our heads in silence and thankfulness to his memory.