Lorna Durie Beveridge was born in Sydney NSW in 1896, the second daughter of Robert Christopher Beveridge, an assistant commissioner in the New South Wales Taxation Office, and his wife Matilda (née McConaghy). On both sides of the family she was of Presbyterian stock, her father's family having been Scottish, and her mother's from County Antrim in the north of Ireland. Her father died when she was aged eight, but the family encouraged scholarship and she successfully completed her secondary studies at Sydney Girls' High School in 1913. In the 'Senior' examination (approximately equivalent to the present Higher School Certificate) she was first in the state in mathematics. Her success in this subject made engineering and science her first choices for university study, but at that time women were not permitted in the engineering courses and her maths teacher advised her not to do science because all that would be available was teaching.
She did first year science at the University of Sydney and achieved further academic success sharing both the physics and chemistry and the mathematics scholarships. She was then able to combine her science studies with the medical course, this delaying her final graduation by one year and making it impossible for her to do honours in mathematics; she graduated BSc in 1917, with first class honours and the university medal in physiology, and MB ChM in 1920, also with first class honours.
Junior and senior years as a resident medical officer followed. She then set up general practice in the harbourside suburb of Mosman. She built up a large practice which she sold in 1939, largely because of the illness of her youngest son. She was highly thought of by her patients with whom she had close bonds. Those were the days before the filling in of forms began to depersonalise much of medicine.
She served as a clinical assistant in gynaecology at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital from 1928 to 1930. She was a member of the council of the NSW branch of the BMA from 1948 to 1950, and took part in the radio campaign against the nationalisation of medicine before the 1949 federal election. In 1940, she was admitted as an MRACP. She began practice as a physician in Macquarie Street and also worked in her husband's industrial practice after 1941, when she went into the Army Medical Corps. She continued to practice in Macquarie Street, and later at St Leonards until 1974. After that, her health deteriorated and after several years of decline she died in 1978.
In September 1923, she married 'Dutchie' Holland (qv I) (later also MRACP), who had been a fellow student and resident. This happy marriage lasted until 1943, when Dutchie was lost on the hospital ship Centaur torpedoed off the Queensland coast. From this loss she never fully recovered, her adjustment being all the harder because for several years she continued to hope, against all reasonable probabilities, that further survivors from the ship would be found. There were four children of the marriage. One, having done medicine, entered the ministry of the Presbyterian Church, and has recently retired as Professor of Divinity in South Africa; one is a fellow of the College and an academic in the School of Physiology and Pharmacology of the University of New South Wales; the third son died in early childhood, and the daughter is a pharmacologist in the Australian Department of Industrial Relations.
In later years her health was not good, and she showed disappointment and frustration that she had not been able to follow the more scholarly paths in the profession that might have been expected after her earlier brilliant academic performance. However, she belonged to an era when there were barriers against women, and when it was well nigh impossible for a woman to combine the highest professional success with having a family. This writer cannot regret her decision to raise a family but we can all be grateful that the professional advancement of women, while still not easy, is now more compatible with family life.