ABN 22 346 252 276
P.O. Box 2478,
Bakery Hill VIC 3354

Chronology

chronology
Albert Coates serves as Principal Medical Witness for Allies at Major War Crimes Trials, Tokyo.
1895 Born - Mount Pleasant, Ballarat. Eldest son of Arthur & Clara Coates. Primary education at Mount Pleasant State School.
1906 Obtained Merit Certificate. Apprenticed to a butcher (briefly) and as a book binder at the Ballarat Litho & Printing Company. Attended Leslie Morshead's night school. Participated in compulsory National Service Training.
1913 Sat for Juniour Public Examination achieving five distinctions, qualifying for matriculation and University entrance. . Relinquished apprenticeship and obtained a position in the Postal Department to finance proposed medical course. Sat for Federal Public Service Examinatlon - Placed sixth in State.
1914 Enlisted (no 23) in7 th Battalion1st AIF as ambulance officer. Sailed first convoy.
1915 Field ambulance in Egypt, at Gallipoli. Amongst second last group to evacuate.
1916-18 France - Flanders and Somme . Interpreter in Australian Intelligence Corps. Arrived home for Christmas.
1919 Lieutenant - Interpreter in Australian Censor's Office.
1919-24 Melbourne University Medical School - 1st Class Honour Anatomy; Exhibition in Pathology. Final MMBS - 1st Class Honours in all subjects.
1924 Registered as Doctor 1st May. Resident Medical Officer, Melbourne Hospital.
1925 Appointed Stewart Lecturer in Anatomy, Melbourne University Medical School. Appointed Captain, Australian Medical Corps, Citizens Military Forces.
1926-28 Acting Professor & Lecturer in Anatomy, Melbourne University Medical School.
1926 MS (Melbourne). Lecturer in Anatomy - National Gallery Art School.
1926 MS (Melbourne). Honorary Surgeon to Out-Patients, Melbourne Hospital. Research into Nervous System. Appointed Convenor, Committee to direct work of Psychiatric Clinics, University of Melbourne. Commenced Consultant practice at 61 Collins Street , Melbourne. As Captain, CMF AAMC - Aide to DDMS Victoria (Colonel R Downs).
1927 Fellow Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
1931 Foundation Member - Medico Legal Society.
1934 Studied Neurosurgery in England , Europe and USA.
1934-47 Member - Dental Board of Victoria.
1935 Honorary Surgeon to In-Patients & Neurosurgeon, Royal Melbourne Hospital.
1935-39 Lecturer in Surgical Anatomy, University of Melbourne Medical School.
1935-53 President - Mitcham Choral Society (now The Melbourne Singers).
1935-40 Convenor, Science Subcommittee, Council of British Medical Assoc. Vic.Branch.
1936-48 Member of Council of British Medical Association, Victorian Branch.
1939 Enlists for WW2, not allowed due to senior hospital position.
1940 Foundation Member - Society of Australasian Neurological Surgeons (later the Neurological Society of Australasia ). Vice-President (Medical) - Medico Legal Society.
1941 President - British Medical Association, Victorian Branch. Enlists. Appointed Senior Surgeon Lt.Col, 10th AGH, 8 th Division AIF, Malacca. Acted as an External Examiner in Surgery for Singapore Medical School . Appointed Consultant Surgeon to Malaya Command. November- Returned to Melbourne attending seriously ill Sir John Latham. Leave curtailed when recalled to Malacca as hostilities commencing.
1942 February. Ordered to depart Singapore, ship sunk by bombing, ashore on Sumatra. Elected to remain with service and civilian wounded. Taken prisoner of war, sent to Burma.
1942-44 Chief Medical Officer and Surgeon, at several POW camps, Burma-Thailand Railway.
1942-45 Chief Medical Officer & Surgeon, finally camp Commandant, POW Hospital (8,000+ patients), Nakompaton.
1945 Acting Deputy Director, Allied Medical Services, Bangkok, for all ex-Thai POWs.
1945 October. Returned to Australia and home.
1945 Honorary Surgeon to In-Patients, Royal Melbourne Hospital.
1945-71 Medical Officer to the Country Fire Authority.
1946 Mention in Despatches.
Order of British Empire.
Principal Medical Witness for Allies at Major War Crimes Trials, Tokyo.
Delivers the 13th Sir Richard Stawell Oration.
Visiting Medical Officer, member Surgical Board, Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital
1947 President, British Medical Association, Victorian Branch.
1948 Foundation & Council Member, War Nurses Memorial Centre, Melbourne.
1949 Appointed to Board of Management, Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital.
1949-56 Stewart Lecturer in Surgery, University of Melbourne Medical School.
1950 Delegate to International Red Cross, Monte Carlo.
Extends travel to UK, Europe and USA to study medical education.
Was intimately involved in appointments of the first Professors of Medicine & Surgery, University of Melbourne.
1951 RSL/Aust'n Government Delegate to Japanese Peace Treaty, San Francisco.
1952 Honorary Fellow, Royal College of Surgeons ( England ) - by election.
1953-58 Member of Council, University of Melbourne
1953 Foundation Member, Council of University House, University of Melbourne.
Delivers the 19th Halford Oration, University of Melbourne ; another of the many addresses given over these and later years.
1953-58 Member, National Council of Australian Red Cross.
1954-69 Medical Advisor to the International Harvester Company.
1954-55 President, Rotary Club of Melbourne.
1955 Knight Bachelor.
1955-61 President, War Nurses Memorial Centre, Melbourne. Chairman, Edith Cavell Memorial Trust. External Examiner, College of Nursing , Melbourne.
1956 Member - Melbourne Olympic Games Medical Committee.
1956 Delivers the 11th Triennial Syme Memorial Oration.
1956-76 Chairman - Board of Management, Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital.
Continues as member of Board of Management until 1977.
1957 Delivers the 11th Triennial Syme Memorial Oration.
1961 Delivers the 4th Rupert Downes Memorial Lecture.
1962 Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa), Melbourne University Centenary.
Consulting Surgeon to - Repatriation Department and Royal Womens' Hospital. Commonwealth Government nominee on Central Medical Advisory Committee- Repatriation.
1963 Opening of the 'Albert Coates Block', Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital.
1964 Foundation Fellow, Australian Medical Foundation.
1965 Delivers the 7th Chapman Oration to the Institute of Engineers, Melbourne.
1968-70 Member, Central and Victorian Advisory Committee on Repatriation.
Member, Victorian Medical Advisory Committee (Hospitals & Charities Commission).
1968 Elected unanimously, 'Knight of Mark Twain' - American International Mark . Twain Society.
1970-72 Nominee of the Metropolitan Hospitals Association on the Senior Medical Officers Wages Board
1976 Appointed an Honorary Member, American International Mark Twain Society (250 members) - (succeeding the late Sir Alexander Fleming).
1977 October - died in Melbourne.  One week later 'The Albert Coates Story - The Will that found the Way' (biography/autobiography) was published in Melbourne.
1995 "The Volunteer" - Albert's 1 st World War Diaries and Letters home published by several family members.
1998 The Albert Coates Memorial Trust established in Ballarat.
2000 May.  Sir Albert Coates honoured in his birthplace with a Statue and Memorial in Sturt St., Ballarat.
2001 Inaugural Sir Albert Coates Award for Graduate Dilpoma in Surgical Anatomy. Melbourne University Private/Royal Australasian College of Surgeons
2003 Mount Pleasant Primary School - Grade Six Student Prizes.
2003 Inaugural Albert Coates Award, School of Nursing, University of Ballarat.
2003 Inaugural Sir Albert Coates Young Achiever Award, Rotary Club of Melbourn.
2004 Inaugural Jim Pryor Prize, School of Visual Arts (now Arts Academy), University of Ballarat.
2004 Inaugural FMP Prize, School of Engineering, University of Ballarat.
2005 Inaugural Sir Albert Coates Secondary College Prize.
2006 Central Staff/Student building, Mt. Helen Campus, University of Ballarat named the "Albert Coates Complex.

2008

2020

Inaugural Regional Emergency Nursing Scholarship Awards announced. Sponsored with the suport of the Australian Legion of Ex-Servicemen and Women.

Inaugural Special Care Nursing scholarship commenced at Ballarat Health Services.

Please click here for a printable version of the chronology.
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