GeniAus - #AtoZChallenge - F is for a family of Champions

During April 2020 the month of this #AtoZChallenge I will be sharing short posts on some of the 2,000+ descendants I have identified of my 3x Great-Grandmother, Elizabeth Phipps. 

Elizabeth Phipps 1785-1869 was a convict who was transported from England to New South Wales in 1814 per Wanstead. 

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Lorna HUXLEY (1911-2009)  

The Great-Great Grandaughter of Elizabeth Phipps, Lorna Margaret Jane HUXLEY, the daughter of Colin Stanley HUXLEY (1879-1954) and Lillian HALL ( - ), was born in Warwick, Queensland on 15 September 1911. By 1933 she employed as a Nurse in The District Hospital, Parramatta, NSW, Australia.  She died at the age of 97 on 22 January 2009 in NSW, Australia.

Lorna and Charles Geoffrey CHAMPION became engaged on 27 July 1935.and were wed on 20 November 1935 in Warwick Presbyterian Church, Warwick, Queensland, Australia. There was a long report of the wedding in the newspapers. The whole report can be read here: 
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article177341799

1935 'Family Notices', Warwick Daily News (Qld. : 1919 -1954), 23 November, p. 3. , viewed 02 Apr 2020, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article177341799

Her husband Charles Geoffrey CHAMPION, a general practitioner, was born in NSW. He was awarded an 'Order of the British Empire' on 16 June 1979. He died on 26 October 1984 in NSW. 

Charles and Lorna Margaret Jane HUXLEY had the following three children: Geoffrey David CHAMPION, Susan Margaret CHAMPION and (Graham) Warwick CHAMPION all of whom I believe are still living. These offspring were just not Champions in name.

Associate Professor Geoffrey David CHAMPION was awarded an Order of Australia  for "For significant service to medicine in the field of paediatric rheumatology, and to medical research and treatment of musculoskeletal pain."

I haven't been able to dig up any information on daughter Susan except that she married in 1969.

Warwick and his wife Rosemary are prominent Queensland graziers who featured in an ABC Documentary. You can read their story here:  https://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/04/17/3987497.htm

I love to connect with cousins and fellow researchers. Should you find any errors in my post or have additional information please contact me. 

Trove Tuesday - Opthalmologist

Yesterday I took my mother to visit the opthalmologist. How things have changed since my first visit to the eye doctor nearly 60 years ago.

Just for fun I put the search term "Opthalmologist" into a search in Trove to see what I could find and what caught my eye was this from the set of results on the right hand bottom of the page.

What jumped out at me was the name Gregg, Sir Norman McAlister. It took me back 50 years to a dark set of consulting rooms in Macquarie Street, Sydney furnished with old brown leather chairs and sombre timber furniture. Sir Norman was a pleasant elderly gentleman whom I visited on a number of occasions for my regular eye checkups. I knew that he was important because he was a Sir but I had forgotten all about him and his amazing scientific discovery until I saw his name on Trove.

Naturally I followed the link on Trove that took me to this page on The Encyclopaedia of Australian Science: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/10700/20110629-0133/www.eoas.info/bib/hasb04827.html

Following the link from this page took me, not to an archived Pandora website as I expected but, to a page on the Australian Dictionary of Biography that contained biographical information on Sir Norman.

Having read that article I realise why I didn't see Sir Norman after I left school as he had passed away in 1966. The article on the ADB said that "Gregg talked easily to his patients, and kept a tin of sweet biscuits for the children". He did have a good rapport with my Mum and me but I can't remember ever being offered a biscuit. 

Sir Norman's great discovery was "that rubella in early pregnancy caused cataracts and other birth defects". Having read the article I found via Trove I realise how fortunate I was to be under the care of such a distinguished Australian.

Was there a doctor in your house?

At the Sydney Medical School Online Museum and Archive there are valuable resources for genealogists.

The 24,000 students who have graduated from the Faculty of Medicine can be found on a database that can be searched by name,year and degree. On the Biographies page one can see 155 alumni biographies.

The Senior Yearbooks from 1922-1980 are also digitised in .pdf format on the site. These substantial publications contain biographies and photographs of lecturers, photographs of the university and its teaching hospitals and "personal details and characteristics" of the fifth years. Searching these is painfully slow but it is worth perservering.