Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

PENNY Harold John MB BS

1888-1968

Harold John Penny, always known as ‘Hockett’, was the youngest son of Charles James and Emma Stephens Penny of Semaphore in SA, and was educated at St Peter’s College and the University of Adelaide where he graduated MB BS in 1913. He was a talented sportsman and played interstate tennis and cricket. He rowed (No 4) in the Adelaide eight: Adelaide University came third in the 1911 and 1912 intervarsity eights boat races. He was a resident medical officer at the Adelaide Hospital in 1915 and Adelaide Children’s Hospital in 1915. He treated at least three gunshot injuries during this time: one where the master of the four masted barque Hougemont shot at an inebriated sailor, one of self inflicted gunshot wounds resulting in death and a woman with three gunshot injuries.

Penny travelled, on the Mongolia, to the UK in March 1915 to join the RAMC as one of 'Kitchener's 100'. He was given the rank of temporary lieutenant on 26th March 1915 and registered on 3rd May 1915. He married Winifred Annie Lake of Bristol shortly after arriving in England. His mother described her son as having met with an accident after undergoing his training which prevented him from being fit for active service for a long time. He was appointed surgeon at the De Walden Court Hospital, Eastbourne, where he remained until early 1916. Promoted to captain in April 1916 and now fit for active service he went to France on 6 November 1916.

Penny returned to Australia and is recorded as being in practice in Hackney, South Australia. He returned to England with his wife whom he subsequently divorced (1925) for her adultery with a dentist. Later that year he married a vicar's daughter, Mary Violet Risdale, from Harrow-on-the-Hill; it is believed that they travelled to South Australia and Harold joined a practice in Nailsworth. They indicated their intention to  move to Western Australia in 1928; whatever became of these plans they  had returned to England in 1938, initially to Stoke-on Trent and finally to Tunstall in Staffordshire. Penny was a world class croquet player, amongst the best in Britain, winning at least two gold medals in the sport. He seemed to be the bete noir of a number of members of the Mills family against whom he played many tournaments. During his 1948 visit to Adelaide, his first for 18 years, it was noted that he had three sons, one on the land and two still at school, and a daughter studying medicine. Harold John Penny died in Bournemouth in March, 1968.

Source

Blood, Sweat and Fears: Medical Practitioners and Medical Students of South Australia, who Served in World War 1. 

Verco, Summers, Swain, Jelly. Open Books Howden, Adelaide 2014. 

Uploaded by Annette Summers AO RFD