Llondha Holland was born at Warwick, Queensland, the son of Thomas John Holland, a journalist, and Mary Holland (nee O’Neill), also a journalist. The family moved to Sydney where Llondha (almost universally known as ‘Dutchie’) attended Fort Street Boys’ High School and in 1915 entered the medical course at the University of Sydney. In the latter part of this course he was resident in Wesley College, one of the College’s original eight students.

After graduation he was a junior and senior RMO at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, spent a period in general practice and then he became established in an industrial practice in O’Connell Street, Sydney, succeeding Dr WR Graham. He offered for military service in 1939 and entered the Army in early 1941. He served in the Middle East for just under a year before his unit returned to Australia to meet the threat of the Japanese. After periods in Sydney and Tamworth, Dutchie, now a major, was posted to the hospital ship Centaur, which plied between Sydney and the New Guinea region. On the way north from Sydney early on 14 May 1943 the ship was torpedoed off Brisbane and sank rapidly with the loss of approximately 300 lives.

Thus died a lovable man, devoted to his family and loved by them. He was generous and ready to give to help the needy. Sport was his great recreation, particularly cricket. He played regularly for Mosman Veterans and served on the general committee of Mosman Cricket Club.

His wife, Dr Lorna Beveridge, practised medicine in Mosman for many years and became a Member and Fellow of the College. Dr Pauline Baillie-Newton who worked with her in the practice has written about Dutchie: ‘He was a very private person who radiated a quiet warmth and sincerity coupled with a lively sense of humour. He always showed an acute awareness of the needs of others and a deep caring for their welfare. His devotion to his family was outstanding’. Of their three surviving children, all have some medical connection. One, having done medicine, entered the Presbyterian Church and is a professor of divinity in South Africa; one is a Fellow of the College and an academic in the medical school of the University of New South Wales, and one is a pharmacologist in the Australian Department of Industrial Relations. A stained glass window in memory of Dutchie is in Scots Kirk, Mosman.