Raphael Cilento

Raphael Cilento

Sir Raphael Cilento, December 1940
Born Raphael West Cilento
2 December 1893 (1893-12-02)
Jamestown, South Australia
Died 15 April 1985 (1985-04-16) (aged 91)
Oxley, Queensland
Education Teacher, medical practitioner
Known for Aiding Refugees Post World War II
Relatives Lady Phyllis Cilento (widow)
Diane Cilento (daughter)
Jason Connery (grandson)
Profession Medical practitioner
Institutions Australian Army's Tropical Force
Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine (1922-24)
Commonwealth Government's Division of Tropical Hygiene (1928-34)
Queensland Health Department
United Nations refugees and displaced Persons (1946-47)
Australian League of Rights
Specialism Administering Tropical Medicine
Research Public health - tropical medicine
Notable prizes Knighted 1935

Sir Raphael West Cilento (2 December 1893 – 15 April 1985), often known as "Ray",[1] was a notable Australian medical practitioner and public health administrator.

Contents

Early life and education

Raphael Cilento was born in Jamestown, South Australia in 1893, son of Raphael Ambrose Cilento, a stationmaster (whose father Salvatore had emigrated from Naples, Italy in 1855),[2] and Frances Ellen Elizabeth, née West.[1] His younger brother Alan Watson West Cilento (born 1908) became General Manager of the Savings Bank of South Australia from 1961 to 1968.[3] He was educated at Prince Alfred College,[3] but although he was determined from an early age to study medicine, he was initially thwarted in doing so due to lack of money. Therefore he trained first as a school teacher, sponsored by the Education Department, from 1908 and taught at Port Pirie in 1910 and 1911.[1] He eventually entered the University of Adelaide Medical School on borrowed funds, but while there he won so many scholarships and other prizes that he ended his course with a respectable bank balance.

Early career

For the earlier part of his working life, Cilento's interests were mainly in public health and, specifically, tropical medicine. He served with the Australian Army's Tropical Force in New Guinea which superseded the German administration after the First World War. Later he joined the British colonial service in Malaya.

On his return to Australia he was Director of the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine in Townsville, Queensland, from 1922 to 1924.[1]

Middle career

Following a further term in New Guinea, he became Director of the Commonwealth Government's Division of Tropical Hygiene in Brisbane. He held that role from 1928 to 1934.

In 1934 Queensland's Forgan Smith Government set out to create one of the world's first universally free public health systems, and then Minister for Health, Ned Hanlon, recruited Dr Raphael Cilento to achieve this goal as Director-General of Health and Medical Services.[4] Cilento, despite his subsequent identification with the political right wing, never lost his belief in government-funded health care.[1] To assist in his policy-making objectives, he studied law and was admitted to the Bar in 1939.[1]

As Director-General (a position he held till 1945), and combined with the presidency of the state's Medical Board (as well as with the medicine professorship at the University of Queensland), he firmly opposed the anti-polio methods of Elizabeth Kenny, although at first he had spoken politely enough of her work to give the impression that he favoured it.

Cilento was knighted in 1935 (when only 42 years old) for his contributions to public service and tropical medicine. He briefly achieved international fame after the Second World War for his work in aiding refugees with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. In July 1945 he was the first civilian doctor to enter Belsen concentration camp, after doing considerable work on malaria control in The Balkans.[1] He was Director for Refugees and Displaced Persons from 1946 to 1947, and from 1948 was director of disaster relief in Palestine but resigned in 1950 after expressing sympathy with dispossessed Palestinian refugees.[1] He returned to Australia in 1951.

Later life

His later life in his native land was characterized by frustration at being unable to find appropriate employment in government service or academia. This failure was at least partly the consequence of his increasingly ultra-conservative views, exemplified by his involvement with the Australian League of Rights during the 1950s and 1960s in particular, and his continued public support for the White Australia Policy long after this doctrine had ceased to be part of the Australian party-political mainstream.

In a letter in The Courier-Mail (18 May 1965) on Australian clergy's attitude to the Vietnam War he said 'I am not a practising Christian - I am sorry for it...I regret that I have not the gift of faith'.

He died on 15 April 1985 in the Brisbane suburb of Oxley, Queensland and was survived by his wife and six children. Although he had been married in a Church of England service, he was brought up Catholic and was buried with Catholic rites.[1]

Family

In 1918, whilst they were both studying medicine at the University of Adelaide, he became engaged to, and on 18 March 1920 at St Columba’s Church of England, Hawthorn he married, Dr Phyllis McGlew,[5] who also became a well-known medical practitioner and medical writer. They briefly set up in general practice in Tranmere before departing for Malaya in October.

Together they had three sons and three daughters. The three sons and Ruth became medical practitioners, Margaret became an artist, and Diane became an actress. [6]

Raphael C F Cilento, born February 1921 in Malaya, became a neurologist. He married Billie Solomon on 31 January 1947,[7] and his daughter Adrienne Ruth was born in January 1948.[8] He took over his mother's practise in Brisbane in 1949. From 1963-2007 he was licensed to practise in New York.[9]
Phyllis Margaret Cilento (1923-2006), born 23 December 1923 in Sydney, became a painter and printmaker. She grew up in Brisbane, moved to Syned in 1943, and joined her father in New York in 1945. She spent most of the 1950s and early 1960s in Europe, marrying Geoffrey Maslen in 1963, and returned to Brisbane in 1965 to raise their family. She took up art again seriously around 2000, holding several exhibitions. She died 21 November 2006 in Melbourne.[10][11][12][13][14]
Ruth A Yolanda Cilento was born in Adelaide in 1925 and graduated in medicine and surgery from Queensland University in 1949. She became engaged to Westall David Smout in November 1949,[15] took up duty at Cairns Base Hospital in December 1949,[16] and married in Brisbane on 14 July 1950.[17] In addition to a medical career, she has three children, is a sculptor, a sketcher, has an angora goat stud and wrote a children's book, Moreton Bay Adventure in 1961, which elder sister Margaret illustrated.[18][19]
Carl Lindsay Cilento (1928-2004) was born in August 1928 in Brisbane. On 16 April 1952 he married Diana Lauderdale Maitland.[20] They had six children: Peter (1953), Miranda (1955), Joanne and Belinda (1957), Richard (1961) and Madeline (1966).
Diane Cilento (5 October 1933 - 6 October 2011) was born in Mooloolaba, Queensland. She was a famous actress who, for eleven years, was married to Sean Connery, and was the mother of actor Jason Connery.[21]
David Cilento was born ca. 1937.[22]

Other interests

Publications

Sir Raphael Cilento's publications include:

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Mark Finnane, 'Cilento, Sir Raphael West (Ray) (1893 - 1985)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 17, Melbourne University Press, pp 216-217.
  2. ^ Desmond O'Connor, Italians in South Australia: The first hundred years, In D. O’Connor and A. Comin (eds) 1993. "Proceedings: the First Conference on the Impact of Italians in South Australia, 16–17 July 1993", Italian Congress: Italian Discipline, The Flinders University of South Australia: Adelaide, pp.15-32.
  3. ^ a b Notable Australians ed. Cheryl Barnier Prestige Publishing Division of Paul Hamlyn Pty 1978 ISBN 0 86832 0129
  4. ^ Morris, John Hunter QC (2006) "The Crisis in Decision-Making" Accessed 4 March 2009
  5. ^ Mary D. Mahoney, 'Cilento, Phyllis Dorothy (1894 - 1987)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 17, Melbourne University Press, pp 214-215.
  6. ^ Interview transcript tape 1 : Diane Cilento, Australian Biography (SBS TV), 2000.
  7. ^ Doctor Weds The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld) 1 February 1947 p.6 - includes picture
  8. ^ From ship to church The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld) 20 April 1948 p.3 - includes picture.
  9. ^ Five doctors in Cilento family The Sydney Morning Herald 10 March 1949 p.9
  10. ^ Margaret Cilento, Dictionary of Australian Artists Online, www.daao.org.au
  11. ^ Pictures of 69 of Margaret's works can be found on The National Library of Australia website
  12. ^ Run away to paint the circus, 15 June 2005, Sydney Morning Herald
  13. ^ Breaking New Ground, 27 July to 30 September 2007, QUT Art Museum. "Education kit"
  14. ^ Circus - Dream and Reality, 18 June 2005, eva breuer art dealer
  15. ^ Doctors' daughter to marry student, The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld) 25 November 1949 p.10. Photograph Courier-Mail 26 November 1949 p.8
  16. ^ Hospital Medical Staff Cairns Post (Qld) 20 December 1949 p.5
  17. ^ Went to altar in wrong shoes The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld) 15 July 1950 p.8
  18. ^ Dr Ruth Cilento, www.ruthcilento.com
  19. ^ Moreton Bay adventure / Ruth Cilento ; illustrated by Margaret Cilento, National Library of Australia
  20. ^ Confetti and Tulle The Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld) 17 April 1952 p.8
  21. ^ Diane Cilento, Australian Biography (SBS TV), 2000.
  22. ^ Margaret Cilento, Portrait of David Cilento c.1951, QUT Art Collection
  23. ^ Welcome to The Royal Historical Society of Queensland, The Royal Historical Society of Queensland, www.queenslandhistory.org.au

Sources

External links