James Peter Speid Jamieson
Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia
James Peter Speid Jamieson (1880-1963)
Extracts from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography':
James Peter Speid Jamieson was the youngest son and eighth child of Robert Jamieson (1827-1899) and his wife, Barbara Laurenson Laing. He was born at the family croft at Cruisdale, near Sandness, Shetland, Scotland, on 9 February 1880. His father was schoolmaster at Sandness, his mother also taught there, and the children studied at the school and became pupil-teachers. Education was balanced by the rigours of crofting for the family's physical needs, which fostered self-reliance, physical strength and a stoical nature.
On his father's death in 1899 James was appointed interim teacher until the family moved to Lerwick, and he left Shetland to study arts at Edinburgh University, intending to become a teacher. He shared digs with his brother Edward, a medical student, who soon persuaded him into medicine. He completed his MB, ChB in 1904, winning the Pattison prize for surgery. Edward E.B. Jamieson and another brother became prominent teachers of anatomy; a third brother became the senior school inspector for Scotland, while a sister, Christina Jamieson, taught and wrote on Shetland handicrafts, social customs and language. She emigrated to New Zealand in 1935.
James P.S. Jamieson sailed for South Africa in 1907 for a post as medical officer for Johannesburg mining companies. While there he met Janet Milligan Boddon, a nurse, and they decided to marry. They both liked South Africa, but the potential for racial upheaval, together with letters from Jamieson's New Zealand friends, convinced them to come to New Zealand about 1908. James joined a small practice near Collingwood, and the couple married in Nelson on 11 November 1908. Disappointed with the opportunities in Collingwood, the Jamiesons soon moved to Eketahuna in Wairarapa ... ... He built up a successful country practice and was a borough councillor from 1913 to 1915. In 1930 he gained his MD, and was made a fellow of the College of Surgeons of Australasia.
Jamieson was active in the Nelson division of the New Zealand Branch of the British Medical Association (NZBMA), and in 1935 was made chairman of the NZBMA's national health insurance committee. Jamieson was chairman of the NZBMA from 1943 to 1945, a national council member for 20 years, chairman of the Nelson division, and regional medical deputy for the Nelson army area before and during the war years. In 1949 he became the first person outside Britain to be awarded the BMA's gold medal for exceptional services to medicine. He was made a CBE in 1956 for his wider community service ...
... In his politics and approach to living Jamieson was a conservative man who kept the simple habits of his spartan childhood. Always ready to try new methods, he spared no effort in caring for his patients, and seemed uninterested in making money. His taciturn public manner disguised a laconic humour and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Bible and classical literature; he was a popular speaker and formidable in debate. While his career was essentially in general practice, Jamieson's many years of public service and his prominence in the social security debate in the 1930s earned him widespread respect and affection.
JULIET OLIVER
