Dr E. P. Ellison

Te Ao Hou, March 1964, Page 63

Dr E. P. Ellison Dr Edward Pohau Ellison, who was one of the members of the Young Maori party responsible for the marked progress of the Maori race after the turn of the century, died in Napier last November, aged 78. Dr Ellison was born at Waikanae and educated at Te Aute College and Otago University. He was appointed chief medical officer of Niue Island in 1919 and while there became deeply interested in tropical diseases and leprosy. After a term of three years in the Chatham Islands as resident commissioner, magistrate and medical officer, he returned to Dunedin to take a postgraduate course in tropical diseases in 1925–26. For nearly 20 years, with only a four-year break as director of the division of Maori hygiene, Dr Ellison was chief medical officer of the Cook Islands, and he was commissioner of the High Court there for 13 years. In 1938 he was awarded the O.B.E. for his long service to New Zealand's island peoples. In 1945 he returned to private practice at Manaia in Taranaki and remained there until his retirement to Taradale a few years ago. Dr Ellison was a university rugby blue and played for the New Zealand Maori side in 1912. He leaves his wife and a family of nine: Riki, Leeston, Christchurch; George, Sydney; Nan (Mrs Guest), Kohukohu; Eleanor (Mrs Burns), Manaia; Boyd, Wellington; McNeil, Napier; Joy (Mrs McLeod), Manaia; Dr Tom Ellison, Dunedin; and Daniel, a lecturer in agriculture at the University of Kuala Lumpur. An article on Dr Ellison's life and achievements appeared in the September 1963 issue of ‘Te Ao Hou’.