Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

SOUTHWOOD Harry Milton MD BSc MRACP FRANCP
1907-2005

Harry Milton Southwood was born, on 30th December 1907, in Kadina, SA.  He was the son of John Albert Southwood and Elizabeth Jane, nee Watters. He was educated at Prince Alfred College and studied medicine at the University of Adelaide, graduating in 1932. He initially went into general practice but was interested in psychiatry.  He gained a degree in science, in 1936, to improve his psychological knowledge, this, he said later in an interview, was a way to join physiology and psychology together. He became one of Adelaide’s first, and for some time, the only psychoanalyst before WW2. He built an electro-convulsive therapy machine (ECT), from a gramophone record player.  The ECT machine passes a controlled electrical current through the brain, to trigger a brief seizure, which can reverse some specific mental health conditions. Southwood obtained his MRACP in 1941. He married Gwenneth Edna Mavis Sanders, on 22nd November 1933 in St Augustine’s Church, Unley.  She was the daughter of Herbert Henry Sanders and Bessie Maude, nee Dibble. Southwood and his wife were to have two daughters and a son.

Southwood joined the CMF in 1943 and was posted to 6th FdAmb. He was placed on the Reserve of Officers in AAMC on 7th November 1941 as an honorary captain. He was transferred to be an RMO of AAMC on 24th May 1942. He was not called up for full-time duty until 11th January 1944. He ceased full-time duty and was marched out to civilian practice a month later on 9th February 1944.

Southwood was Deputy Superintendent of the Enfield Receiving House, from 1939 to 1948.  The Receiving House was used for the observation and temporary treatment of mentally ill patients who were not certified. Southwood was a Lecturer in Psychological Medicine at the University of Adelaide from 1947 to 1962.  He was a member of the British Medical Association and the Australian Medical Association as well as a member of Australian and British Psycho-analytical Associations. His wife Gwenneth died in 1999.  Harry Milton Southwood died, on 12th May 2005, in Campbelltown, SA, and is interred at Enfield Memorial Park.

Source

Blood, Sweat and Fears III: Medical Practitioners South Australia, who Served in World War 2. 

Swain, Jelly, Verco, Summers. Open Books Howden, Adelaide 2019. 

Uploaded by Annette Summers AO RFD