Page 15 - Pharmacy History 29 Nov 2006

Edward Mayhew: Pharmacist, business man and scholar
By Geoff Miller
Edward Mayhew, a founding member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Western Australia, as well as its first president, was also the first pharmacist to be registered in this state under the Pharmacy and Poisons Act of 1894.
For over 30 years he held the position of registrar of the Council of the Pharmaceutical Society, the body responsible for the administration of the Act, as well as lecturing at the Perth Technical college to pharmacy and dental students for a similar period.
Edward William Mayhew (Teddy) was born at Hitchen, in Hertfordshire, in May 1855. He
was a descendent of a very old and distinguished Essex family. His father was a surgeon, and his grandfather was a member of the House of Commons for Colchester.
When Edward was 15 years old he was apprenticed with a well known London firm, described as ‘Oil and Colonial Brokers’ and attended London University College, probably on a part-time basis. This introduced him to the world of botanical and organic chemistry and it would
have been there that he learned the rudiments of materia medica, which enabled him to speak so impressively on the subject in later years.1
On account of ill-health Edward went to New Zealand in 1875, and in the following year he arrived in Western Australia. For a time he was with
his uncle Dr William Mayhew of Toodyay, before he obtained a position as clerk to the Superintendent of the Fremantle prison.
This job depressed him, so in 1878
he resigned to join the staff of the Western Australian Bank. At the time the bank’s staff consisted of seven officers.
However, Mayhew felt stifled in the confines of the banking world, so in 1881 he teamed up with Mr William Sandover to establish the hardware and wholesale druggist business of
Edward Mayhew, 1899.
With gold fever just starting to grip Western Australia, this business was very successful, and in 1884 they branched out and set up two retail pharmacies, one in Fremantle and the other in Perth.
It was not long before their own diverse interests saw the partnership dissolved, and Mayhew took over the ownership of the pharmacies as well as the wholesale druggist business.
He soon diversified even further by manufacturing pharmaceuticals, starting the Pelican Confectionary Works and setting up the first soap works in the State.
He sold these businesses in the 1890s and then turned to establishing an
export business from the distillation of sandalwood and other essential oils. His experiences during his apprenticeship in London no doubt encouraged this decision.
In those gold rush days it was extremely difficult to find qualified pharmacists to employ and Mayhew with his own limited qualifications, had to employ unqualified people in his businesses.
This concerned him greatly, as well
as the overall lack of any legislative control over the practice of pharmacy and the indiscriminate sale of poisons and other hazardous substances. Mayhew then decided to use his stature in the pharmacy world to interest a number of influential pharmacists in pressing for a Pharmacy and Poisons Act in Western Australia.
In October 1892, the Pharmaceutical Society of Western Australia was formed and Edward Mayhew became its first President.
He was largely responsible for drafting the Pharmacy and Poisons Act which was assented to in November 1894 and took effect in March 1895.
As the new Act required pharmacists and their premises to be registered, it is appropriate that Edward Mayhew became the first person
to be registered as such in Western Australia. It was through his efforts that the highly professional and moral tone of the Society was set, and which
Sandover and Mayhew, at Fremantle.
volume 3 ■ no 25 ■ March 2005
Pharmacy History Australia ■ 15