In April 1913, Dr Charleton Yeatman was appointed Medical Superintendent of the Adelaide Hospital. He was just 25 when given the role of Medical Superintendent. His subsequent career is comparatively well documented, but his time in charge at the Adelaide Hospital is not.
Born at Auburn, South Australia, on 27 July 1887, Yeatman was the eldest son of medical practitioner Dr John Walter Yeatman and his wife Maude. He attended St Peter’s College before studying medicine at the University of Adelaide, graduating in 1910. He then worked as a Resident Medical Officer at the Adelaide Hospital and the Adelaide Children’s Hospital.
The Adelaide Hospital staff appointment register has Yeatman’s appointment as Resident Medical Officer on 1 February 1911, with his service ending on 31 January 1912. He is next recorded as Medical Superintendent on 15 April 1913, succeeding Dr Trent Champion de Crespigny. His appointment was for a three year term, although the register records his resignation on 31 May 1915.
Yeatman’s appointment was reported in the press before he took up the role. In February 1913, The Register reported that the hospital’s Board of Management had recommended him to the Government for appointment as Medical Superintendent for three years. His appointment was formally approved by the Executive Council later that month.
Few Surviving Records
Despite Yeatman’s senior position, little has yet been uncovered about his day-to-day work as Medical Superintendent. The hospital’s Board minutes for the period are missing from the museum’s records, and no correspondence or other documents written or signed by Yeatman have been identified in the collection.
He was not a member of the hospital’s Honorary Medical Staff and did not attend its meetings, unlike his predecessor de Crespigny. As a result, the surviving Honorary Medical Staff records provide little insight into his administration of the hospital.
These gaps make it difficult to establish which decisions, improvements or challenges can be attributed directly to Yeatman. His appointment and dates of service are documented, but the details of his leadership remain largely unknown.
His time as Medical Superintendent ended in 1915 when he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, beginning his overseas military medical service.
Military Medicine
During the First World War, Yeatman served in military hospitals in Egypt and France, where he further developed his surgical skills. He was later appointed commanding officer of the Australian Army’s base hospital at Harefield, Middlesex, in England. For his service there he was awarded an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
After returning to Australia in 1919, Yeatman joined Dr Goode in general practice at Port Pirie. He moved to Mount Gambier in 1928 and returned to Adelaide in 1934, joining a general practice in Unley. In 1938, he became one of the original members of the newly established Royal Australasian College of Physicians.
His military medical career continued after the Second World War, when he commanded the 130 Australian General Hospital in Japan, serving the British Commonwealth Occupation Force.
Yeatman died on 4 February 1959, aged 71.
Remembering an early Medical Superintendent
Yeatman’s later military service and medical career are better documented than his two years as Medical Superintendent of the Adelaide Hospital. The surviving appointment records establish that he assumed a senior hospital role at an unusually young age, but they do not reveal much about the work he undertook while in office.
His story is therefore both a record of an early hospital leader and a reminder of the limitations of the surviving historical collection. Further correspondence, personal papers or contemporary accounts may yet help fill the gaps in our understanding of his time at the Adelaide Hospital.
Written by Margot Way, CALHN Health Museum
Information sourced from Trove, CALHN Health Museum collection, and other online sources. Copies of all newspaper articles and other relevant documents are available on request.