Family background
William Augustus West was born in 1859 at Ardenode, County Kildare, Ireland, son of George W.West and Georgiana. In 1886 he married Amy Georgina Taylor at Uralla. There was a son and a daughter of the marriage. He died at Glebe on 11 December 1905, aged 46 years. Amy West died om 13 July 1934, aged 74 years.
Occupation & interests
After obtaining his diplomas LRCP and LRCSI in medicine from Dublin in 1882, William West emigrated to Sydney and joined elder brother, Annesley, also medical practitioner, at his Glebe practice in 1883, and continued at the practice (Montrose, 20 Glebe Road) till his death in 1905. His brother Annesley died in 1885.William West was a vice-president of Glebe District Cricket Club, Glebe Rowing Club and Glebe Bicycle Club.
Community activity
Dr William West regarded the diptheria hospital as ‘a decided advantage to the district” quoting statistics that revealed of the 145 patients taken to the hospital in 1897 only 25 proved fatal cases, and of those none was from Glebe. The figures West argued was ‘marvellous testimony of the usefulness and magnificent work the hospital was doing. The medical men and nurses were performing a work at great risk that should receive the approbation of the community’. However in 1900 Dr West agreed the Children’s Hospital should be moved nearer to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
Local government service
William West was an alderman on Glebe Council 1896-1904. The outbreak of bubonic plague in Sydney in 1900 raised anxieties among residents. Most of the 303 people who contracted the plague were working-class males living in conditions that harboured infected rats and fleas. Of those, 103 died. Dr West staunchly defended the efforts of Glebe Council in 1902 ‘to keep down Bubonic plague and the borough was kept as clean as possible’.
References
Sydney Morning Herald, 18 July 1885 p. 3
Sydney Morning Herald, 6 December 1898, p. 7
Sydney Morning Herald, 3 April 1900, p. 7
Sydney Morning Herald, 6 May 1902, p. 3
Sydney Morning Herald, 13 December 1905, p. 9
The Australasian Medical Gazette, 20 December 1905
British Medical Journal, 27 January 1906, p. 237