Extracts from St. Peter’s school magazine announcing C.B.Blackburn’s appointment as a school prefect.
His next aim was to study medicine at the Medical School of Adelaide. Unfortunately the Medical School closed in 1896 because of an unresolved issue involving the nurses and later the doctors and medical teachers at the then Adelaide Hospital. Rather than wait for the resolution of the “hospital crisis” several medical students decided to continue their studies elsewhere. Henry Simpson Newland (later Sir) preferred London, others moved to Melbourne and Charles Blackburn transferred to Sydney.
Charles graduated in 1899, topped each year and obtained his MD four years later. His dissertation was on polycystic disease of the kidneys and liver,
His medical career was also spectacular. Within 3 years of internship at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital he became the Medical Superintendent, then an assistant Physician (1903) and Consultant, (1911).
In 1916 he joined the army as lieutenant colonel, worked in Cairo in the 14th.Australian Hospital, was mentioned in dispatches and was granted an OBE in 1919.
He was the president and chairman of several medical and hospital groups and gave numerous orations (Lister oration in Adelaide 1923). In 1937 he was a founding Member of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and became it’s first President.
He was a very eloquent speaker, a successful fund-raiser and great supporter of the University of Sydney. He was appointed University Chancellor in 1941 and awarded KCMG in 1960. He was a natural communicator and a friend to academics, politicians and other prominent personalities.
His more personal interests were his vegetable garden, trout fishing and golf at the Royal Sydney Golf Club. He enjoyed clinical medicine and continued to see his old patients, one or two a day, 3 to 4 times a week, even in his 90s. He died suddenly aged 98 at his home in Belleview Hill.
He is survived by one of his two sons, Charles Ruthven Bickerton, now a Professor of Medicine at the Sydney University and daughter Vera, an accomplished artist.