Reduced to letters after a name, how much they tell us about the man, and his eclecticism, but how little of him. All who knew Ted Ford testify to three outstanding personal characteristics, rarely so genuinely and openly evident in any one man: an ever-present gentleness, a great depth of kindness and understanding (three qualities I think as one, for they were so intimately associated), a wonderful generosity and a sincere humility, none of which precluded firmness when the occasion demanded.
To these must be added a keen sense of humour and a fine wit, sometimes manifest not simply in the words he spoke but betrayed by the associated slight smile, the lift of an eyebrow or a twinkle in the eye. He had an infinite fund of historical anecdotes about people and events—how often we wished there was a hidden tape recorder! Stories which he recounted in his own inimitable style, often in a series of well-selected phrases rather than a consecutive series of sentences, often deliberately leaving just a little to the imagination of the listener.
A connoisseur of good food, good wine, and good company (and no mean cook himself), he was the most superb dinner guest, a delightful conversationalist, well-informed on an enormous range of subjects—although just occasionally he might empty his pipe in a slightly indiscriminate manner.
To recall some of the highlights of Sir Edward's career, it is appropriate that I should largely follow the biographical introduction written by Alison Holster for the booklet entitled Ford and Australian Medical History, published by the Library of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1978. Over the 15 years or so that Alison was Librarian to the College, she and Sir Edward established a close bond of affection, and she was, among his most regular visitors in his later years when he largely retired to his flat, his books and his exquisite collection of Australian art—and of course, he had known most of the artists personally, just as he knew many of the authors of his Australian literature.
He was born in Bethanga, Victoria, and decided at the age of 24, after a year of Arts, to adopt medicine as a career. He supported himself by working in the Postal Department at night, doing medicine by day, and steadily reading through the shelves of the Melbourne Public Library in between. He graduated in 1932 at the age of 30 from the University of Melbourne.
After a period of hospital practice, he entered academic medicine as Lecturer, later Senior Lecturer, in Anatomy and Histology. Like his colleague and lifelong friend Kenneth Russell, he came under the charismatic influence of Frederick Wood Jones, himself a great bibliophile. During this time, he developed an interest in physical anthropology and later in tropical medicine. He became a medical officer in the Commonwealth Department of Health in the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in Sydney, and took its Diploma in Tropical Medicine in 1938. That same year, he undertook a study for the Papuan Administration on the epidemiology of venereal disease among island and coastal tribal groups of Papua, including the Trobriand Islands, Goodenough Island and the d'Entrecasteaux Islands, but his interests extended much more widely—notably to native art and artefacts.
On his return to Australia, Edward Ford became Medical Officer in charge of the Commonwealth Laboratory at Darwin. Shortly after the outbreak of World War II, he enlisted in the AIF as Commanding Officer, First Australian Mobile Bacteriological Laboratory in the Middle East. By 1946, he was Director of Hygiene, Pathology and Entomology for the Australian Military Forces. He played a major role in ensuring protection against malaria for Australian and other forces in the South Pacific. He was mentioned in dispatches in 1943 and awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1945.
In 1946, after graduating MD from the University of Melbourne with a thesis on malaria, he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship and gained the Diploma of Public Health with distinction at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1947. He returned to become Director of the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and in 1947, Professor of Preventive Medicine at the University of Sydney, where he remained until his retirement in 1968.
His university service included Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Fellow of the Senate (1953–1957) and Acting Vice-Chancellor (1960–1961). He also helped found the Medical School of the University of Western Australia and served on the Council of Macquarie University. He contributed to the Committee on the Future of Tertiary Education in Australia and served on numerous state, national, and international committees including with the NHMRC and WHO. He was knighted in 1960.
He was a renowned bibliophile with collections in the history of medicine and Australian literature, often annotated in his precise handwriting. His Bibliography of Australian Medicine 1790–1900 was a seminal work, complemented by key articles such as those in An Annotated Bibliography of the History of Medicine and Health in Australia.
He became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1946. He contributed actively through roles on the Editorial Committee of the Australasian Annals of Medicine (now Australian and New Zealand Journal of Medicine), the Research Advisory Committee, and the Committee on Occupational Health. He was Vice-President from 1970 to 1972.
In 1958, he became Curator of the Historical Library and Chairman of the Library Committee. Through his leadership and generosity, the library became a major national resource in medical history. Ted once declined to be included in a book on Australia’s great biologists, describing himself—through a pseudonymous letter signed as his own secretary—as simply a physician, teacher, and historian.
He even expressed his views anonymously on controversial issues, using his sister’s married name to write to newspapers. In some ways, Ted identified with William Redfern, the convict surgeon of the First Fleet. He concluded Redfern’s biography with these words:
“He was rich in the attributes that men admire. He was stalwart in adversity, a helper of the weak, a spokesman for the oppressed, a great citizen and a good doctor.”