Sir Neville Howse VC

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Major General Sir Neville Howse VC KCB KCMG FRCS

Neville Reginald Howse was born at Stogursey, Somerset and studied medicine at London Hospital. In 1889 he migrated to NSW practising in Newcastle & later Taree. He went to England in 1895 to gain the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons. After topping his course in 1897, he returned to Orange, NSW where he became a highly respected surgeon.

Neville Howse had a passion for serving his adopted country. Soon after the Boer War broke out he volunteered, and in January 1900 he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the NSW Army Medical Corps & sailed for South Africa. He was serving with a mounted infantry brigade at Vredefort where, on 24 July, he rescued a wounded man under heavy fire. For this he was awarded Australia\’s first Victoria Cross and promoted to captain.

Howse returned to Australia, but was soon back in South Africa as a major in the Australian Army Medical Corps in February 1902, just as the war was ending. Now eminent in the community, Howse was twice elected Mayor of Orange and married Evelyn Pilcher in Bathurst in 1905. They had five children.

When the First World War began he was appointed Principal Medical Officer to the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force sent in August 1914 to capture German New Guinea, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. His medical knowledge and good leadership of the small team of medical personnel ensured there were no cases of serious illness. The task completed, he returned to Australia just in time to join the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as staff officer to the Director of Medical Services.

Soon after the arrival in Egypt of the AIF in December 1914, Howse was promoted to colonel and appointed Assistant Director of Medical Services, 1st Australian Division. He again distinguished himself at the landing on Gallipoli on 25th April 1915. He took charge of evacuating wounded men from the beach in the campaign\’s opening days. ‘Shells and bullets he completely disregarded’, wrote one officer, but ‘to the wounded he was gentleness itself.’ Determined to see that Australian forces were properly cared for, Howse appeared as a witness at the Dardanelles Commission in 1917. He described the arrangements for dealing with the wounded at the landing as inadequate to the point of ‘criminal negligence\’ on the part of the British authorities. In November 1915 he was appointed Surgeon General and became Director Medical Services of the AIF.

In 1916, the AIF moved to France to fight as party of the British Army on the Western Front. Howse was based in London, but made regular visits to France. He was always a ‘hands on\’ leader. He consistently endeavoured to maintain the physical standards of the AIF. Its success in contributing to the victory in 1918 was due in part to the efforts he and his staff made ensuring that recruits sent from Australia were physically fit to be front-line soldiers.

Howse received two knighthoods for his distinguished service. After the war, he made a brief return to private practice before resuming work with the army as Director General of Medical Services. He resigned in 1922 to enter Federal Parliament, representing the seat of Calare. In nearly seven years in parliament he was a capable and far-sighted Minister for Defence, Health, Territories and Repatriation. In 1930 he went to England for medical treatment but died on cancer on 19 September.

In war and peace Sir Neville Howse was a distinguished servant of Australia who mad a lasting impact on his local community as a doctor and civic leader, on the Australian Imperial Force as its Director of Medical Services, and on the welfare of the whole nation as a capable and efficient government minister.

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