Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

IRWIN William Morris MB BS FRCP FRACP

1914-1994

William (Bill) Morris Irwin was born on 11th December 1914, in Adelaide.  He was the son of Rev William Henry Irwin who taught at St Peter’s College, Adelaide, and Edith, nee Morris who had been headmistress of Melbourne Girls Grammar School. Irwin was educated at St. Peter’s College and studied medicine at the University of Adelaide, graduating MB BS in 1938.  He played hockey and was a member of the Footlights Club.

Irwin enlisted in the militia in January 1939 at the rank of captain while an RMO at the Royal Adelaide Hospital.  He joined the 2/6th FdAmb in mid-1940 and served with many prominent Adelaide colleagues.  The FdAmb deployed to Palestine, where Irwin contracted malaria, and then to Syria. Late in 1941 he was promoted major and posted to 2/2nd FdAmb, in 1942. The unit returned to Australia the following year stopping in Ceylon for some months, training in jungle warfare. The unit moved to New Guinea in 1943.  He was promoted to lieutenant colonel and took command of 17 FdAmb and was perhaps the youngest lieutenant colonel in the Australian Army Medical Corps to that time.  After more training in Queensland, the Unit moved to Wau, PNG, then Lae, PNG.  As American forces left Bougainville, Australian units occupied the islands and were scattered across four sites, Green Island, Emirau Island, Stirling Island and Munda.  Irwin as CO had to control his unit by any available ship or aircraft.  His efforts in maintaining control of such a dispersed unit no doubt contributed to his being Mentioned in Despatches.  At the end of the war, his HQ was in Bougainville.  He returned to Adelaide, in 1946, and took charge of 121 Australian General Hospital at Northfield, during which time he undertook a three-month refresher course at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and left the Army in August 1946.

Irwin was awarded a Nuffield scholarship and travelled to London to gain his MRCP and to begin specialisation in the field of gastroenterology.  Irwin met Phyllis Hayward in London in 1949 and they married, in Adelaide, in 1951.  They had two children. He returned to Adelaide and the RAH and was awarded MRACP in 1950, FRACP in 1957 and FRCP in 1974.  He became an honorary physician and senior visiting medical officer at the RAH and was involved in undergraduate teaching.  Irwin was a member of the BMA and AMA and a foundation member of the Gastroenterological Society of Australia and New Zealand.  Between 1977 and 1983 Irwin served as honorary colonel of the RAAMC in 4MD. For many years he was Vestryman for Christ Church, North Adelaide and a member of the Adelaide Synod.  He was a keen golfer and sports spectator.  William Morris Irwin died in July 1994. He was survived by his wife and his children, Verity, a general practitioner and Charles, an architect and landscape architect.

Source

Blood, Sweat and Fears III: Medical Practitioners South Australia, who Served in World War 2. 

Swain, Jelly, Verco, Summers. Open Books Howden, Adelaide 2019. 

Uploaded by Annette Summers AO RFD