biographies

Ley, Gordon David (1914 - c. 1970)

Born
9 September 1914
Moonee Ponds
Died
c. 28 May 1970
Victoria, Australia
Occupation
Gynaecologist, Medical Practitioner and Obstetrician

Details

Author unknown. Published in the "Medical Journal of Australia", 24th October 1970 and the "Book of Rembrance", Royal Women's Hospital, 1070.


GORDON DAVID LEY
(1953 1970)

Gordon David Ley was born at Moonee Ponds on 9th September, 1914, the third Child of Thomas David and Marion Grace Ley, the second of his sisters having died at the age of two before he was born. His early education was received at State Schools, first at Ascot Vale for two or three years, then at Acheron and finally at Murrumbeena for three or four years. The twelve months he spend at Acheron seemed to have made a great impression on him because of the pleasantness of its undulating surroundings, as he lived with his uncle Hector on a property between the Maroondah Highway and the Acheron River, always within sight of the dramatic outline of the Cathedral Range to the east.

After these schools Gordon was enabled by scholarships to have four years at Scotch College in Hawthorn, where he both matriculated and studied for Leaving Honours.

As his family continued to live in Murrumbeena after his schooldays it proved convenient to him to seek employment at the Alfred Hospital in Prahran. Here he spent four years at the Baker Medical Research Institute, working as laboratory assistant in the media room. It was during this time that there dawned upon him the realization that to embark upon a medical career was a practicability. As a consequence he enrolled as a medical student at the University of Melbourne in 1934 and graduated as Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in December, 1939, gaining the Douglas Stephens Prize in Diseases of Children and sharing with Dr. John Bryant Curtis the Nyulasy Prize in Gynaecology.*

After this he returned to the Alfred Hospital as resident medical officer, where he met the girl whose future was to be linked with his, a science graduate in the Bacteriology department. Mary Weir Phillips originally came from New South Wales and at the end of his twelve months’ appointment, in January, 1941, Gordon drove up to Sydney for his marriage with her at Darlinghurst, his best man and traveling companion being a colleague from the Alfred Hospital, Richard Fitzwalter ("Dicky") Read, now a surgeon living abroad in Wimbledon.

He next worked for a year on the resident staff of the (Royal) Women’s Hospital, Melbourne, where Alison Mackie was Medical Superintendent and his fellows were Cyrus Jones, Winston Smith, Vernon Hollyock, Russell Sherwin and Graeme Salter. It was here that he received his first training in the obstetrics and gynaecology that was so to fill his later life.

In June, 1942 Gordon received his call-up as Surgeon-Lieutenant in the Royal Australian Navy and in late August his first ship, Warrego, an elderly mine-sweeper, just a few weeks after that birth of his first son. Subsequent naval postings included establishments at Garden Island and in Brisbane, after which he joined Bataan, a new destroyer, to see service in Tokyo Bay during the surrender formalities conducted aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in August, 1945.

Upon demobilization in February, 1946, he resumed his connection with the (Royal) Women’s Hospital, at first as a Registrar in the team led by Kelvin Churches, then during 1947 being himself the Medical Superintendent. Gordon was thus the holder of the last of the Women’s Hospital’s "clinical" superintendent posts - a source of spectacular experience which trained such obstetrical leaders as John Green, Dixon Saltau, Authur Hill, J.W. Johnstone, Donald Lawson, Ronald Rome, Allison Mackie and Kelvin Churches - because soon afterwards the position became an almost wholly administrative one, at first in the hands of W.D. (now Sir William) Refshauge and then, for 19 years ending in February, 1970, in those of J.C. Laver.

During these years he moved his home from war-time Sydney to the Melbourne suburb of Essendon where he was to remain, surrounded by his well-tended garden.

In 1948 Gordon commenced obstetrical practice, at first entirely in the rooms of J.W. Johnstone (Acting Professor of Obstetrics in the University of Melbourne for three years in succession to W. Ivon Hayes after the death of the first Professor, Robert Marshall Allan in 1946), although later he also helped with the midwifery work of the late D.M. Embelton of Essendon. Gordon retained his association and then from 1951 as a Senior Clinical Assistant. Also in 1951, as successor to its founder J.W. Johnstone, he was appointed Honorary Surgeon-in-Charge of the Sterility Clinic. He held this office with enthusiasm for ten years until Alwyn Long took his place, whereupon he was promoted to become its consultant surgeon.

In 1951 the University of Melbourne appointed Lance Townsend to be the first definitive occupant of the newly-styled chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (the change in its title having been affected in 1950 during the acting-tenure of J.W. Johnstone), and the Professorial Unit at the Women’s Hospital, which originally consisted of one secretary and the present writer, came into being. Gordon was invited to become its part-time First Assistant in Obstetrics upon the resignation of Vernon Hollyock and this he was for about a year from February, 1952. At the same time he was conducting throughout the Hospital a careful investigation into the question of "post-maturity" in the light of knowledge at that time. His report on Prolonged Gestation [Medical Journal of Australia, 14th November, 1953] did much to liberalize the rigid views then widely held.

In 1953 he was appointed to the (Royal) Women’s Hospital’s medical staff as Honorary Obstetrical Surgeon to Outpatients, a post he held in the same unit for the remaining 17 years of his life, at first under W.J. Rawlings and from 1963 under James Smibert. Progressively during this time he gained enormously in stature - as a man, as a member of a team, as a clinician, as a consultant. With the passing years he came to be more and more highly regarded as a conservative obstetrician and gynaecologist and became a sound operator. Through him an unusually rich harvest of good to the patient has been reaped. He was always particularly successful at avoiding that impersonality which mars too many aspects of public hospital work. Many women, at all levels within the community, have cause to remember gratefully his care for them. At staff meetings we had all been long aware of his tempering function, his lucid moderation, his ability often to suggest to opposing factions a very acceptable compromise that dissolved their differences while astounding all with its obviousness. His was always a constructive voice. It is ironical that his death should have occurred just a few hours before his promotion to the rank of Honorary Obstetrical Surgeon to In-patients was to have been announced.

Gordon became a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1947 and was elected to the fellowship in 1964.* He served as the Royal Women’s Hospital representative on the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Melbourne, on the Senior Medical Staff Inter-Hospital Committee and, most recently, on the Australian Medical Association’s committee in Victoria examining the question of payment for visiting staff of teaching hospitals. He was chairman of the editorial panel which in 1965 revised the Hospital’s printed notes in obstetrics for its pupil midwives and served on a small committee examining the applicability of computerisation to our work. For his last two years he led the affairs of the Marshall Allan Library during its settling into a permanent home and laid the foundations of a growing collection of historical works.

Having joined the Essendon and District Hospital Society in May, 1963 he remained a member of that hospital’s Committee of Management from 1964 until his death, had served on both its House Committee and its Medical Advisory Board and was President of its Clinical Society for 1969-70. At the Sacred Heart Hospital, Moreland, he and Hugh Tighe shared duty as Honorary Medical Officers in the obstetrical department from its inception in December, 1963 until February, 1966.

Though always busy with his work, he yet took time to live the full life. He was much concerned with the conservation of Australia’s best natural features; he had considerable interest in flora and fauna, particularly bird-life; he greatly enjoyed bush-walking and country travel. He was a member of the Council of The Victorian National Parks Association and had been prominent in examining the possibility of declaring the Otway Ranges a national park. He derived pleasure from the lyre-birds in Sherbrooke Forest, the scenery in the Wittenoom Range, the view of Mr. Stirling or the countryside of Portuguese Timor. He was interested in Australian history, both general and medical, and frequently attended meetings and displays.

A placid pipe-smoker, he seldom became ruffled. Each task had to be undertaken in its due order and properly completed. He knew how to be cheerful when weary, patient when exasperated, interested in the tedious and wisely unhurried by urgency. He exuded calm and competence. He had to a remarkable degree the capacity to husband his energies by taking frequent cat-naps – for short moments but repeatedly. After each he would be instantly alert and orientated. He often remarked that he could drift into momentary sleep when sitting anywhere at all.

With his slow, loose-limbed walk, his twinkling eyes, a suspicion of a mischievous smile, his laterally-moving lower jaw, his demeanour always seemed to indicate, as an example to us all, a most balanced perspective upon life. It remains difficult to realize that now we will see him no more.

The end came unexpectedly during sleep on the night of 27/28th May, 1970, in a busy week, after a tiring day which led to an evening of vague ill-health. The cause was massive coronary occlusion and cardiac infarction and signs were found that there had been minor previous attacks, of which characteristically he had made no mention.

He is survived by his wife Mary, two sons Gordon and Andrew and his daughter Mary-Anne. To them appreciation is expressed for a staunch friend and a loyal colleague. They know that they have our sympathy in their loss which is ours too.

Gordon was proud to have seen his sons married, both in 1969. It is saddening that he was not able to welcome his first grand-child, David Charles Gordon, who was born on 6th August, 1970 to Pauline, the wife of his elder son.

Archival/Heritage Resources

Royal Women's Hospital Archives

  • Book of Remembrance, 1956 - 1975; Royal Women's Hospital Archives [ Details... ].

Prepared by: Robyn Waymouth

Created: 27 September 2006, Last modified: 26 November 2006