1924 graduate

Alice Campbell Rose

This biography was compiled by Rennae Taylor, based on primary and secondary sources.

1924 graduate

Alice Rose sitting with the Otago Girls Hockey Team, 1916. Photo courtesy of Otago High School Library (1)
Alice Rose sitting with the Otago Girls Hockey Team, 1916. Photo courtesy of Otago Girls’ High School Library (1)

Contents

New Zealand years

Alice Campbell Rose was born in Dunedin to Duncan Campbell and Helen Briggs (nee Middleton) Rose in 1901. She had one younger brother, Thomas Ian. (2)

At the time of her parents’ 1899 marriage her father was the manager of the Mararoa Station in Southland and her mother’s family came from the Otago Benmore Station. (3)

Little information is available on Alice’s early childhood and schooling. Some of her secondary education was at Otago Girls High School (OGHS) which she commenced on 9 February 1915 and finished in February 1919 prior to starting her Otago University studies. She excelled in hockey at OGHS and in 1917 was captain of the A team. (3)

1917 Hockey A Team. Alice Rose is seated in the front row, centre. Courtesy Otago High School Library (1)
1917 Hockey A Team. Alice Rose is seated in the front row, centre. Photo courtesy of Otago Girls’ High School Library (1)

Alice excelled in her studies and obtained her MB ChB in 1924 with the highest marks of her year and became the first woman to take up the travelling scholarship, which gave her financial assistance to pursue further training overseas. (4, 5) Mary Francisca Dowling, class of 1915, had been awarded the travelling scholarship in her year but due to World War I was unable to immediately travel and tragically died in the influenza epidemic of 1918. (6)

She was registered as a medical practitioner on 18 May 1925 (5) and after completing her house surgeon training at Dunedin Hospital travelled to England in 1926 for further study. (7)

United Kingdom years

In 1927, Alice successfully achieved her Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians (MRCP). She was registered in the UK on 30 June 1927, at a time when there were only about 25 women members, (7) and was appointed resident medical officer at Kensington Infirmary, St Mary Abbot’s Hospital, London, where she specialised in ailments of children. (8) She was removed from the NZ medical register in 1934. (5)

Her engagement and marriage in 1929 at Essex Church, London, to Dr Kenneth Tallerman, a UK Harley Street paediatric physician, (9) was announced in NZ papers. Unfortunately, her mother was unable to attend, due to her ill health. (10)

Prior to World War II Alice held municipal appointments in infant and child welfare work and was a Medical Officer to a girls’ school. During the war she became involved in the Emergency Medical Service and during this time took up anaesthetics and obtained her Diploma in Anaesthetics (DA Eng) in 1942. For a portion of the war years, she was on anaesthetic duty at the head injury centre at Chase Farm, Enfield where she served long hours. (5, 7)

From 1945, she was elected to the Honorary Staff of the London Chest Hospital, where she continued as an anaesthetist with consultant status until her resignation in 1960 due to ill health. (5, 7)

Alice was Fellow of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, (5) a Fellow of the Society of Medicine and a member of the Thoracic Society and the Women’s Medical Federation. She also had published articles on medical subjects. (7)

Following World War II, where Kenneth served overseas with the Royal Army Medical Corps, he and Alice purchased their first of two rural properties ( ‘Schoolgreen Farm’, North Weald and later ‘Woodlands’, in the tiny hamlet of Sheering, both in Essex). At their second property they restored the ‘grand’ old farmhouse and enjoyed a variety of pets including geese. She was known to be a keen gardener and an excellent cook. She was a member of the Essex Hunt and served as treasurer of the Sheering Branch of the Conservative Association for a time. (7)

Alice died in London on 25 July 1960 at the age of 59 years of what was described in her obituary as ‘the dread disease’ . She and her husband were unable to enjoy their retirement years together. They had no children. (7) Kenneth remarried and died in 1981 at the age of 87. (11) In 2000, a legacy was left to the Royal Medical Foundation of Epsom College to found a legacy in the name of Dr Alice Campbell Rose.

Sir Charles Burns, class of 1922, wrote this tribute to Alice in the New Zealand Medical Journal obituary: (7)

Dr Alice Rose, Mrs. Kenneth Tallerman, was one of those rare spirits whom it was good to have known. Endowed with a brilliant intellect, which she exercised to the full, Alice was no mere “blue stocking”, for she possessed grace, charm, and many other fine qualities which endears her to her many friends…. Above all things perhaps, Alice was a good doctor with excellent clinical sense and fine judgment…

Eminently practical by nature she mastered every skill to which she set her hand; possessing dignity, grace and courage she sublimated these and many other fine qualities of mind and heart to the needs of her patients and the furtherance of her professional skill. Hers was a rare spirit; but she belonged to a rare vintage of medical graduates, many of whom gave, as she did, of the best years of their lives to the land of their forbears, and died, as she died, without an evening to their days, without even time to look back on the fineness of their achievement.

Bibliography

  1. Patterson M. Courtesy of Librarian, Otago Girls High School Hockey Team 1916/1917Dunedin: Otago Girls High School 2025. p. 2.
  2. Births, Deaths and Marriages Wellington: NZ Government Internal Affairs; [12.06.25].Available from: https://www.bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
  3. Marriage. Southland Times. 1899 12.05.1899. Available from: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ST18990512.2.6
  4. N.Z. University. Auckland Star. 1926 17.04.1926. Available from: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AS19260417.2.89
  5. Wright-St Clair RE. “Historia Nunc Vivat” Medical Practitioners in New Zealand 1840 to 1930 Christchurch: Cotter Medical History Trust; 2003.
  6. Personal. Taranaki Herald. 1915 30.10.1915. Available from: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TH19151030.2.8
  7. Burns C. Obituary: Dr Alice Campbell Rose. NZ Med J. 1960:440-1.
  8. Personal. Feilding Star. 1927 08.08.1927. Available from: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/FS19270808.2.27
  9. Social Notes. Waikato Times. 1929 02.08.1929. Available from: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WT19290802.2.19.1
  10. Medical Marriage. New Zealand Herald. 1929 20.11.1929. Available from: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19291120.2.187.6
  11. They Served Wiki: Kenneth Tallerman: Fandom; [30.07.2025]. Available from: https://theyserved.fandom.com/wiki/Kenneth_Tallerman
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