(1895–1977)
Albert Coates was born in Ballarat, the eldest of seven children. His
formal schooling ended at the age of 11 and at 14 he left his work as
a butcher’s apprentice to take up employment with a bookbinder, taking
night classes to further his ambition to study medicine. After a stint
in the Postmaster-General’s Department, aged 19, he enlisted in the
AIF as a medical orderly. He was among the last Australians to leave
the Gallipoli peninsula. After service in France, Coates returned to
Australia and the PMG, working night-shifts while he studied medicine,
graduating fourth in his class.
From 1925 to 1935 he worked at the Melbourne Hospital and from 1925
to 1940 lectured in anatomy at the University. He re-joined the AIF
in 1941 as lieutenant colonel in the Australian Army Medical Corps and
was posted to Malaya. Despite opportunities to leave, Coates insisted
on remaining with his patients and was captured when the Japanese occupied
Padang. Between 1942 and 1945 he worked in the camps in Burma and Thailand,
later testifying to the International Military Tribunal for the Far
East on the appalling conditions which obtained there. ‘Weary’ Dunlop
later recalled Coates as ‘the object of hero-worship and inspiration’.
After the war, Coates worked as honorary surgeon to in-patients at the
Royal Melbourne Hospital, lectured in surgery at the University and
was instrumental in the establishment of chairs of Medicine and Surgery.
He was at various times president of the Melbourne Rotary Club, Council
member of the University and a member of the Board of Management of
the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital.
After retirement from medical practice in 1971, he published The Albert
Coates Story in 1977. Although he practised as a general surgeon, Coates
was aware of the changes and advances in surgical practice and encouraged
both research and specialisation in his juniors. He was awarded an OBE
in 1946, and an honorary doctorate of laws in 1962. He was knighted
in 1955 and elected a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, London,
in 1953.
