BOURNE, ELEANOR ELIZABETH (1878-1957), medical practitioner, was born at South
Brisbane on 4 December 1878, eldest child of John Sumner Pears Bourne, clerk in
the Land Commission Court, and his wife Jane Elizabeth, née Hockings. She was
educated at the Brisbane Central School for Girls, the Leichhardt Street State
School and the Brisbane Grammar School, whose trustees awarded her an extension
scholarship; she passed the 1896 senior examination with distinction, winning the
Grahame and the John West gold medals. The government exhibition awarded to her
late that year to the University of Sydney was the first to a woman; she thus
became the first Queensland woman to study medicine. Despite a severe attack of
typhoid fever during the course, she won honour passes in four of the annual
examinations and graduated as bachelor of medicine and master of surgery on 6 July
1903.
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Australian Dictionary of Biography Online
Dr Eleanor Bourne was appointed first medical officer in the Department of Public Instruction in 1911. Her research on hookworm disease was used in the Rockefeller-financed hookworm survey of northern Queensland. During wartime, Dr Bourne served as a lieutenant of the Royal Army Medical Corps in London. She became medical officer to Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps.
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Australian Women's Register
Eleanor Elizabeth Bourne went into general practice in 1907 and served as physician to the Hospital for Sick Children, Brisbane. In 1911 she became medical officer for the Dept of Public Instruction and worked for many years in child health, both in Australia and Britain.
Educated University of Sydney (bachelor of medicine and master of surgery 1903). The first Queensland woman to study medicine. Resident medical officer, Women's Hospital, Sydney, Brisbane General Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children, Brisbane 1903-07; general practice 1907-10, also honorary out-patient physician to the children's hospital and an anaesthetist; first medical officer, Department of Public Instruction; lieutenant, Royal Army Medical Corps 1916-18; Diploma of Public Health, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons 1920; assistant medical officer to the city of Carlisle, organising child welfare services and the new maternity hospital and associated maternal welfare services 1920-37. Retired to Brisbane 1937. First honorary medical officer to the Creche and Kindergarten Association in Queensland.
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Encyclopedia of Australian Science