Kathleen Todd
Kathleen Todd | |
|---|---|
| Born | Kathleen Mary Gertrude Todd 19 November 1898 Heriot, New Zealand |
| Died | 22 March 1968 (aged 69) Wellington, New Zealand |
| Parent(s) | Charles Todd Mary Hegarty |
| Relatives | Charles Todd (father) Charles P. Todd (brother) Desmond Todd (brother) Moyra Todd (sister) Bryan Todd (brother) Andrew Todd (brother) Sheila Todd (sister) John Todd (nephew)[1] |
Kathleen Mary Gertrude Todd (19 November 1898 – 21 March 1968) was the first New Zealand women to specialist in child psychiatry.
Early life
[edit]Kathleen Todd was born in 1898 in Heriot, Otago. She was one of the seven children of Charles Todd, an auctioneer and stock and station agent who founded the firm that became the Todd Corporation, and his wife Mary Hegarty. Todd was educated at St Dominic's College, Dunedin of which she was dux in 1915.[2] In 1917 she proceeded to the University of Otago to study medicine graduating (M.B.Ch.B) in 1923.[3]
Career
[edit]Todd spent 1925 as a locum in Rāwene working for George McCall Smith.[3] Professional options for women doctors were limited in New Zealand at that time[4] so she carried out further studies in Vienna and London hospitals and did further courses and worked in Boston and Oakland, California in psychological medicine and maternal and child health.[3] She obtained a Diploma in Psychological Medicine (DPM) in London in 1929.[3][5][6]
Todd returned to New Zealand in 1929 becoming the first woman child psychiatrist in the country.[3] She worked at the Auckland Mental Hospital in Avondale from 1930 to 1935 where she assessed children for institutionalisation under the Mental Defectives Amendment Act.[3][5] After being passed over for promotion she returned to London. She worked in the Tavistock Clinic (where she had worked in the 1920s), at the Hill End Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases, in private practice, and as director of the London Child Guidance Training Centre.[3][5][6] Ill-health prompted her to return to New Zealand in 1946 and from 1949 to 1963 she was a consultant in Lower Hutt.[3][6]
Todd became a Member of the British Psychological Society in 1938 and a Fellow in 1942; a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1941; a Member of the Royal Medico Psychological Association in 1943, the first woman to become a member.[3][7]
Personal life
[edit]Todd shared in the considerable wealth of the Todd family as her father made a point of spreading shareholdings amongst his children and to his wife (although the males got bigger parcels than the females).[8] When Todd and her sister Moyra Todd were living in Hampstead their well-ordered household included servants and "Brett the butler".[9]
Death and legacy
[edit]Todd died in Lower Hutt on 21 March 1968.[5][6]
Todd used her considerable means to establish Fellowships to assist young psychiatrists in postgraduate study in London, one per year from 1962.[3] She intended the money, GBP600 ($24,000 in 2012) per year for three years, to pay for a personal psychoanalysis and assist with a broad experience of European culture. She stipulated that Kathleen Todd Fellows return to New Zealand to private practice.[5][10] Brian Barraclough MD FRACP was the first Fellow 1962-64.[citation needed]
References
[edit]- ^ Monica Showalter (2001). "New Zealand's First Billionaire". Forbes.
- ^ Galbreath, p. 142.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Farquhar, Cynthia; Selway, Michaela (2025). Against the odds: New Zealand's first women doctors. Auckland, New Zealand: Massey University Press. pp. 108–112. ISBN 978-1-991016-98-0.
- ^ Galbreath, pp. 146 and 147.
- ^ a b c d e Labrum, Bronwyn (22 June 2007). "Todd, Kathleen Mary Gertrude 1898–1968". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
- ^ a b c d Wright St Clair, Rex (2013). Historia nunc vivat : medical practitioners in New Zealand, 1840 to 1930. Cotter Medical History Trust. p. 373. ISBN 9780473240738.
- ^ Galbreath, p. 157.
- ^ Galbreath, p. 136.
- ^ Galbreath, p. 155
- ^ "About the Kathleen Todd Fellowship in psychiatry" (PDF). Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry. Retrieved 27 July 2025.
Bibliography
[edit]- Galbreath, Ross (2010). Enterprise and Energy: The Todd Family of New Zealand. Wellington: Todd.
- New Zealand psychiatrists
- New Zealand people of Irish descent
- New Zealand people of Scottish descent
- People educated at Trinity Catholic College, Dunedin
- University of Otago alumni
- 1898 births
- 1968 deaths
- Todd family
- New Zealand women psychiatrists
- 20th-century New Zealand medical doctors
- People from Heriot, New Zealand