Dr Vera Scantlebury Brown - Infinite Women

Born: 7 August 1889, Australia
Died: 14 July 1946
Country most active: Australia
Also known as: Vera Scantlebury

The following is republished with permission from the Victorian Honour Roll of Women.

Dr Vera Scantlebury Brown is honoured for her achievements in improving the health and welfare of women and children in Victoria.

Vera Scantlebury Brown graduated in medicine at the University of Melbourne and became Resident Medical Officer at Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1915, and in 1916, she was Resident Medical Officer at Children’s Hospital where she became a Senior RMO before the year’s end. In 1917, she travelled to London where she worked as a Medical Officer with rank of Lieutenant at a major military hospital (Endell St). In 1920, Vera was a Resident Medical Officer at Women’s Hospital, before going into private medical practice.

Post-war, she had Honorary appointments at Women’s, Queen Victoria and Children’s hospitals and was honorary Medical Officer to Victorian Baby Health Centres Association and the Free Kindergarten Union. Vera realised, on returning from war service, that there was widespread poverty, poor housing and high infant mortality in the community. Some groups of volunteers, led by Dr Isobel Younger Ross, had established some baby health centres with assistance from municipal councils, but she was the prime mover in bringing about the structures that put maternal and child well-being on the community and political agenda.

Her main achievements were the development of a formal network of Infant Welfare Centres throughout the State, introduction of ante-natal and preschool medical services through a comparable network of clinics and the establishment of the tradition that all personnel – medical, nursing and early childhood education – who served mothers and children in the community should be properly trained. The Vera Scantlebury Brown Scholarship, created after her death in 1946 and awarded annually, recognises her insistence on trained staff.

Vera is honoured for her achievements in improving the health and welfare of women and children in Victoria. Her vision, energy, persuasiveness, leadership and organising ability made this possible. The services required co-ordination, integration, expansion, public and professional education, standards of facilities and training, as well as the extension of services to rural areas, where mobile services, a correspondence scheme and radio broadcasts were among strategies used.

This biography has been shared from The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, published by the Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology, under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Vera Scantlebury Brown, the wife of Edward Byam Brown, was director of the Victorian Health Department’s section of infant welfare 1926-1946. She wrote books on the care of infants and young children and her 1937 report for the National Health and Medical Research Council prompted government funding of the Lady Gowrie Child Centres.

1914: Career position – Resident Medical Officer at Melbourne Hospital
1914: Education – Bachelor of Medicine (MB), Bachelor of Surgery (BS), University of Melbourne
1915 – 1917: Career position – Resident staff at the Children’s Hospital
1917 – 1919: Career position – Assistant Surgeon in the Royal Army Medical Corps
1919 – 1946: Career position – Many honorary appointments including Queen Victoria Hospital for Women and Children, the Women’s and Children’s hospitals, the Victorian Baby Health Centres Association, and the Free Kindergarten Union of Victoria
1921 – 1946: Career position – Medical Officer in charge of city baby health centres (part-time)
1924: Education – Doctor of Medicine (MD), University of Melbourne
1925: Career position – Survey of the welfare of women and children, comparing Victoria with New Zealand for the Victorian Government
1926 – 1946: Career position – Director of the section of infant welfare for the Health Department (part-time)
1938: Award – Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1946: Career position – Annual travelling scholarship of £750 established by the Vera Scantlebury Brown Child Welfare Memorial Trust