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ABBOTT Nigel Drury Gresley AM MB BS DUniv Tas

1920-2011

Nigel Drury Gresley Abbott was born in Clunes, Victoria on 29th March 1920 at the family home; he was the son of Doctor Nigel Basil Gresley Abbott, who had served in WW1, and Bessie Drury, nee Alcock. His father was born in San Francisco on the 4th May 1891 the son of Dr Charles T Abbott, native of Tasmania, who had left Australia in 1883 and returned to Sandy Bay Tasmania after the 18th May 1906 San Francisco earthquake; he later received a Letter from Congress on behalf of the President and Congress of America for his contribution to the relief of the population after the disaster. After WW1 the family moved to Geeveston, a small country town in the Huon Valley in southern Tasmania when Abbott was 6 weeks old. Abbott was educated at Geeveston Primary School, the Hutchins School, Hobart and St Peter’s College, Adelaide where he was sent by his parents to avoid a polio outbreak in Tasmania.  He studied his first year of medicine at the University of Tasmania before moving to South Australia and transferring to the University of Adelaide. Whilst at university he played Australian Rules football for the South Adelaide Football club. He graduated MB BS in 1944.

At university he lived in Parkside, South Australia, Abbott enlisted in the Army as a private soldier in 1942. His date of discharge from the Army is unknown but he was serving in the 6 Cav Amb at the time of his discharge. It was likely that he was told to complete his degree before joining the regular army. Abbott then re-enlisted in the Army in 1945 from Tasmania and served, as a Captain, in Japan with BCOF. He was posted to 130 AGH in Kure.  One of the major issues amongst the troops were sexually transmitted diseases.  Gonorrhoea was the most common and required hospitalisation.  It became necessary to separate these troops from other medical and surgical conditions so a hospital was built to accommodate the soldiers with gonorrhoea. Abbott was appointed the first commander of this hospital and was known to have little time for those with ‘self-inflicted’ medical conditions.  After his return to Australia he was discharged from the regular army in 1948, and joined the CMF.  He rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and CO 10th FdAmb in Tasmania. He served for three months in Vietnam, in 1968, where he implemented a Malaria regimen to combat the ever present problems of malaria in soldiers in Vietnam. The regimen was later adopted across all Australian and American forces during this conflict.

Abbott returned to Tasmania and was appointed consultant physician to the Royal Hobart Hospital.  Abbott decided to enter politics, in 1962, at the local government level, and was elected as an alderman on the Hobart City Council. He then ran as a Liberal candidate in the Tasmanian State Parliament election of 1964 securing the seat of Denison as a member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly and at that time in Opposition to the governing Labour Party. He served as Minister for Health and Road Safety in the Bethune Liberal government from 1969 to 1972.  The death of his daughter, Felicity, in a road accident in 1952 motivated a passion for road safety. This resulted in him introducing road safety legislation into Tasmania. This targeted, in particular, drink driving and the wearing of seat belts.

Abbott’s passionate determination to curtail injuries faced intense opposition, although he was proven right some 40 years later. The Legislative Council failed to pass some pieces of legislation that he viewed as critical, so he resigned.  He then unsuccessfully stood as an Independent Liberal in Denison in 1972 and left Parliament.   Abbott moved to the West Coast of Tasmania and was appointed as a physician at Queenstown Hospital, and later worked in general practice, in Zeehan. Some years later he returned to Hobart and ran a successful general medical practice at Kingston, south of Hobart. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Tasmania in 1991 and made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1994. Nigel Drury Abbott died on 13th November 2011 in Hobart.  Lara Giddings, in a condolence motion in the Tasmanian Parliament, then Premier of Tasmania, paid tribute to the profound and lasting affect that Abbott’s road safety legislation had in Tasmania. Abbott is survived by Jocelyn, his wife of 63 years, and by their remaining children Tony, Deb, Clive, Geoff and Rick.

Source

Blood, Sweat and Fears II: Medical Practitioners of South Australia on Active Service After World War 2 to Vietnam 1945-197.

Summers, Swain, Jelly, Verco

Uploaded by Annette Summers AO RFD

Nigel Drury Gresley ABBOTT was born on 29th March, 1920 in Clunes, Victoria

His parents were Nigel Basil Gresley ABBOTT and Bessie Drury ALCOCK

He was a Doctor, Polititian & also served in Vietnam (see obituary)

He died on 13th November, 2011 in Hobart, Tasmania