Guide to the Papers of Dame Jean Macnamara, 1920-1968

 

Collection context

Summary

Collection number:
MS 2399
Creator:
Macnamara, Jean, Dame, 1899-1968
Extent:
6.9 metres and (38 boxes + folio items)
Language:
English
Preferred citation:
Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Dame Jean Macnamara, National Library of Australia, MS 2399, [series number, item number]'.
Availability:
Available
Access conditions:
Partly closed. Not for loan.

Background

Content Summary:
The collection comprises letters and personal documents, photographs, financial papers, newspaper cuttings, notebooks, files of patients and printed material. They document Macnamara's medical career between 1923 and 1968 and relate particularly to her work at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, her studies under a Rockefeller Fellowship between 1931-33, and her research into poliomyelitis and myxomatosis.
Biographical Note:

Annie Jean Macnamara was born on 1 April 1899 at Beechworth, Victoria, and was educated at Beechworth State School and later at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Melbourne. She graduated from the University of Melbourne as a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 1922 and as a Doctor of Medicine in 1924. She then worked at the Royal Melbourne Hospital where she specialized in research into the treatment of poliomyelitis. To further this research, she was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Travelling Fellowship from 1931 to 1933, and studied developments in the United States, Canada and England.

Macnamara returned to the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne in 1934 and also worked part-time at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. She established a surgery in Spring Street, a clinic at Carlton and also conducted country clinics. She recommended the first centre for spastic children, which opened at the Children's Hospital in 1940. She was recognised as a world authority on infantile paralysis.

In the 1933, when she was in America, she came to the view that myxomatosis could be used to eradicate rabbits in Australia. Field trials between 1937 and 1944 were unsuccessful, but in 1949 she argued for a resumption of experiments. This time the virus became epizootic and the Australian Government agreed to the introduction of myxomatosis to destroy the rabbit pest.

In 1935 Jean Macnamara was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire and in 1966 became the first woman to be awarded an honorary Doctorate of Laws at Melbourne University.

On 19 November 1934 Macnamara married Joseph Ivan Connor, a leading dermatologist, and they acquired a home in South Yarra. They had two daughters. She died in Melbourne on 13 October 1968.

Bibliographic Reference(s)

  • Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 10, pp345-47
Immediate Source of Acquisition:

The papers were donated to the Library by Mrs Joan Giles and Mrs Merran Samuel, the daughters of Dame Jean Macnamara, in 1969. Further papers were received from Mr G. Douglas, Chairman of the Vermin and Noxious Weeds Destruction Board of Victoria, in 1970 and 1973.

Arrangement:

The papers have been arranged into 15 series

Indexed terms

Names:
Macnamara, Jean, Dame, 1899-1968

Access and use

Conditions Governing Access:
The collection is available for research, except for Series 8 which is closed.
Conditions Governing Use:
Copying and publishing of unpublished manuscript material is subject to copyright restrictions. For such material, written permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s). Copying of unpublished material for research purposes is permissible 50 years after the death of the creator of the material.
Preferred citation:
Items from this collection should be cited as '[Title or description of manuscript item], Papers of Dame Jean Macnamara, National Library of Australia, MS 2399, [series number, item number]'.
Location of this collection:
Parkes Place
Canberra ACT 2600, Australia
Contact: