HIRSCHFELD, OTTO SADDLER (1898-1957), medical practitioner and university
chancellor, was born on 24 March 1898 in Brisbane, eldest of six children of Eugen
Hirschfeld, a physician from Prussia, and his Victorian-born wife Annie Sarah
Eliza, née Saddler. Otto was educated at the Normal School, Brisbane Grammar
School (which he represented at Rugby Union football) and the University of
Queensland (B.Sc., 1919; M.Sc., 1921). With Professor T. H. Johnston, he was
co-author of 'The Lingulidae of the Queensland Coast', a paper read to the Royal
Society of Queensland in June 1919. Hirschfeld then studied medicine at the
University of Melbourne (M.B., B.S., 1923). After serving as a resident medical
officer at the (Royal) Melbourne Hospital for eighteen months, he returned to
Brisbane in June 1924 and entered private practice. On 29 October 1925 at St
Andrew's Anglican Church, South Brisbane, he married Joan Mary Eliott, a nurse.
His father, who had been German consul in Brisbane, was interned in 1916 and
deported in 1920. Although he was permitted to return to Australia in 1927, the
family suffered many indignities during these years. As the eldest son, Otto
carried the responsibility of being head of the family in Eugen's absence. He
never revealed any resentment of the episode.
View the full record at
Australian Dictionary of Biography
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