Edith Huntley M.D.

Edith was born at Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, England in 1852. Her father was the joint owner of a Brewery. At a young age, Edith was set on becoming a doctor. She trained at the Royal College of Surgeons and Physicians and the London School for Medicine for Women. She then studied in Edinburgh and qualified in 1887.

Shortly after qualifying, Edith went to Simla, India and in 1902 moved to New Zealand. At first Edith practiced medicine from her home named ‘The Eyrie’ on Kelburn Parade. He reception room was described as featuring some quaint patterned Oriental curtains and tapestries.

In 1912 she opened the Lahmann Health Home in Miramar (8 Weka Street, the building is still standing). It was ceremonially opened by the Prime Minister, the Hon. W. F. Massey. The Home’s focus was for the ‘treatment of chronic diseases on the natural cure system originated by the late Dr Lahmann of Dresden’. It held the latest equipment for the treatment of nervous and constitutional ailments.

 In 1913, Edith was elected the first ‘lady councillor’ to the Miramar Council. The Mayor in his welcoming speech expressed his belief that she would ‘make as good a councillor as one of the male sex’.

In 1916 Edith gave a speech titled ‘The Protection of Children’ under the auspices of the Housewives Union. In her speech, Edith spoke of the need to have women police and juries as she thought it intolerable that children should be questioned by men for details in assault cases.

Edith was assisted with her work at the Lahmann Health Home by Dr Danneville, an unqualified medical assistant. Dr Dannevill (previously known as von Danneville) was briefly interned on Sommes Island during WWI, the only woman to be interned. ‘The little Dane, who always attracted attention by the mannish modes and manners she adopted, is said to be suffering from a severe nervous breakdown’. She was released in July 1917 and later moved to San Francisco (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjelmar_von_Danneville)

Edith whose health was failing in 1917, leased the Home to the Defence Department for the use of convalescent soldiers and gradually retired from active practice. She passed away in her sleep on 14th November 1919 at her friend Mrs McVicar’s home in Matai Road. Her interment was a ‘motor funeral’ and private. Anne McVicar said that Edith ‘was a fine, upright woman, whom few people really knew’.

In her will, Edith left the residue of her estate to be spent in ‘the creation, maintenance, and endowment of an institution for the care and treatment of expectant mothers, the promotion of research into the means of alleviating the conditions of motherhood, and the teaching and training of pupils in midwifery’. The residuary estate was worth under £9,000.

The Alexandra Maternity Hospital in Newtown was establish in 1927 with money from these funds. One of the two wings of the hospital was named after Edith. In addition to her professional accomplishments, Edith was also gifted at verse writing. She composed the ‘In Memoriam Hymn’ sung at the Wellington Peace celebrations.

‘Many unobtrusive acts of kindly helpfulness without hope of reward will be recounted by those who enjoyed the privilege of really knowing the late Dr Edith Huntley’.

Plot: *Ch Eng 2/E/382

By Julia Kennedy

With thanks to this article by Margaret Rushton published on the Leamington History website:

https://leamingtonhistory.co.uk/dr-e-a-huntley-1852-1917-medical-pioneer