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The navy did not forget him. Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort, Parry’s successor as naval hydrographer and
perhaps the most outstanding of those who held that post during the nineteenth century, thought him a truly
scientific surveyor and urged those who followed him to Australian waters to seek his advice. They did and he
became something of a father figure to the next generation of naval surveyors. As he grew older, change passed
him by. ‘I am quite tired of this place,’ he told a friend sadly in 1853, ‘now rendered so void of comfort from the
independence of the lower classes,’ but he knew his ties to Australia were too strong to break. He died of apoplexy
at his home in North Sydney on 26 February 1856, survived by his wife and eight children. In the words of the
Australian Dictionary of Biography, King ‘was the first and for years the only Australian-born to attain eminence
in the world outside the Australian colonies’. King’s Table, the flat-topped hill he saw beyond the entrance to
Darwin harbour in 1819 and King Sound, Western Australia, commemorate him.
G C Ingleton, Charting a Continent, 1944; P P King, Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia, 1827; ADB, vol
2; A Powell, ‘Explorer-Surveyors of the Australian North Coast’, 1—P P King and the Men of Mermaid and Bathurst; JRAHS, March 1980.
ALAN POWELL, Vol 1.
KIRKLAND, WILLIAM BRUCE (1898–1952), medical practitioner, was born on 27 January 1898 at Minyip
in Victoria, the son of James Kirkland, whose father, also James, arrived on the Bendigo goldfields from Scotland
in 1852. Bruce Kirkland’s father was an employee of the Victorian Railways, stationmaster at Minyip, at the time
of his son’s birth. Kirkland’s mother, Elizabeth Ann, nee Giblett, was born at Tarlita, Victoria, on 18 June 1854.
She married James Kirkland at Castlemaine, Victoria, on 24 November. Their son was educated at St Paul’s
Grammar School, Caulfield, Victoria and graduated Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery from the
University of Melbourne in 1925.
As a young man, Bruce Kirkland served in the First World War. After completion of his medical course,
he spent sonic time in New Guinea before going to the Northern Territory in 1927 as medical officer with the
North Australia Railway construction during the building of the railway from Katherine to Birdum.
In September 1929, Kirkland transferred to the Department of Health as the first doctor appointed to Katherine.
On 11 December 1929, he was transferred to Alice Springs as the first doctor in that region. Patients were cared for
in the small hospital, Adelaide House, built and staffed by the Australian Inland Mission.
He carried out medical surveys of the Aboriginal population at Hermannsburg, and some cattle properties.
In 1932, he transferred to Darwin but he did relieve again at Alice Springs during part of 1934 before relieving as
Chief Medical Officer for almost a year. In 1935 while acting as chief protector of Aborigines, he arranged some
financial assistance for two new missions, Port Keats and Yirrkala.
On 1 April 1939, Kirkland was appointed to the position of Chief Medical Officer and the following year, he
personally examined all the leprosy patients on Channel Island and established the first individual medical records
for them. At this time, all children on the island who did not have leprosy were sent to missions.
With the build-up toward war, several doctors joined the army and were sent elsewhere, leaving the service for
civilians and the outback very short-staffed. The new Darwin Hospital on Myilly Point was built during 1941 but
in the meantime, the Packard Street hospital was overcrowded and inadequate. Dr Kirkland was the chairman of
a medical planning committee to coordinate service and civilian hospital needs and to ensure emergency supplies.
However, their supplies were drawn on for action elsewhere, leaving Darwin very short.
New equipment for the new Darwin Hospital did not arrive and, when the hospital was opened on 2 February 1942,
Dr Kirkland borrowed beds from the American army and a mobile X-ray unit from Larrakeyah Barracks. He did
not have adequate staff for the disaster on 19 February when the hospital was attacked. Two large bombs damaged
a ward and six other bombs fell near the hospital, breaking windows. Flying debris holed the roof in several places.
Most civilian casualties were taken to Darwin Hospital while army ambulances took the wounded from the harbour
and Royal Australian Air Force base to army hospitals at Bagot and Berrimah. Dr Kirkland was made an Officer
of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his work that day.
After the bombing, the army took command and the civilian nurses were sent out with evacuees and patients.
Dr Kirkland was absorbed into the army on 6 July 1942, and was retained at Fortress Hospital (Darwin hospital)
to oversee quarantine matters and to provide care for the leprosy patients on Channel Island. He rose to the rank
of Lieutenant Colonel but remained in charge at Darwin for the duration of the war. Early in 1943, he arranged for
Catholic Sisters to staff the hospital on Channel Island and continued to care for these patients himself.
Dr Kirkland was released from the army in September 1945 and at his own request was transferred to the
staff of the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at the University of Sydney. He visited the Northern
Territory several times as an adviser to post-war staff. He also visited Papua New Guinea with a team to review
the hospital needs of that country. On top of that, he became a consultant on leprosy to the special lazaret at Prince
Henry Hospital, New South Wales.
He was ill for a few months before his premature death on 20 July 1952 at the age of 54 years. His wife Ruth,
a nursing sister whom he married at Darwin on 21 January 1933, survived him, dying in Scotland on 26 January
- Their daughter, Ruth Jeannette Anne (later Mrs Hosie) was born in Darwin, 9 June 1936, and lives in
Scotland.
Dr Kirkland was known as a kindly person with pleasant personality who did his best to help the outback
missions. Kirkland Crescent commemorates him in Darwin.
Family Information; Department of Health Records, AA, Darwin; School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine Records, Sydney.
ELLEN KETTLE, Vol 1.