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he received for community service as Mayor of Fremantle for 28 years. He also served in the Western Australian Parliament in the Legislative Assembly for three years and later in the upper house for 14 years.
The honour of being the longest serving member of the Pharmaceutical Council goes to Hugh Howling, who was a councillor for a record term of 37 unbroken years, nine of them as President. He was also the President of the Perth and Suburban Chemist’s Association, the forerunner of the Western Australian Branch of the Guild. and he became the first Vice President of the Federal Guild when it was formed.
Hugh Howling was also involved in civic affairs and served on the Perth City Council for over 40 years, being made a Freeman of the City of Perth in 1966.
There have been two Presidents who have died in office, the first being Joseph Beckervaise George in 1921 and the other was a man known to most contemporary pharmacists , Kevin Thomas McAnuff .
Kevin was a member of the Council for 19 years and its President for 12, as well as being a State and National Councillor of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia. His legend lives on!
Women pharmacists had not featured in the history of the council up until 1972, when Miss J Kennett became the first woman to be elected. The first woman to become the President was Gladys Heedes, who served from 1981 to 1983, and the present incumbent
is Lenette Mullin, who had to step into the breach following the death
of Kevin McAnuff. Women today are well represented on the Council and its committees.
The registrars
The Council and the Society has also been well served by its registrars, who have all played as vital role in managing the affairs of the Society as well as fulfilling their legal obligations under the various pharmacy Acts.
Since the Society was first formed in 1892, there have been eight Registrars,
the first six having all been pharmacists as well as former councillors. The
list of names starts with Dr James R Laughton, and if the proposed changes to the Pharmacy Act are implemented, could finish with Robert Brennan the current Registrar.
In between the terms of office of these erstwhile gentleman came Eric Walsh, Edward Mayhew, Reginald Cohen, Alfred Webster, Francis Avenell and Frederick Lorman.
As mentioned earlier, one of the
major responsibilities of the Council
is the education and training of pharmacists, and in the early days of the Society lectures and examinations were conducted by the Councillors themselves. Initially the Council had pursued the Government for a suitable site for a College of Pharmacy but their pleas fell on deaf ears as there were
no facilities for tertiary education in Western Australia anywhere until the Perth Technical School was established in May 1900, and the study of chemistry was its most significant activity
establish a degree course in pharmacy, but the proposal was rejected. Now
in 2005, the worm has turned, and
the University of Western Australia is offering a post graduate Masters Degree course in pharmacy.
Education and training
The first full time course was introduced in 1964 and no new apprenticeships had been accepted after March 1963 and until the part time course was finally phased out in 1968, it ran concurrently with the new full time course.
A major advance in status was made in 1967 by the creation of a separate department of pharmacy at
the new Institute of Technology at Bentley, which later became Curtin University.
All teaching was concluded at the Perth Technical School and the Council moved into new offices it had purchased in Ventnor Avenue in West Perth.
The pharmacy course was granted degree status in 1972, and a graduate diplomas course in pharmacy was implemented in 1973.
Students completing the degree course were then required to undertake
a further 2000 hours of approved practical experience in a retail pharmacy or hospital dispensary.
The Pharmaceutical Society of Western Australia, its Council, Officers and staff, all deserve the highest praise
for their achievements over the past 113 years, and the highlights briefly outlined here can be attributed to a veritable army of people who believed in the profession of pharmacy and the excellence of practice that could be achieved.
Facts and figures are from A History of Pharmacy in Western Australia, written in 1975 by Alan McWhinney, who was himself a former Councillor for 24 years and President from 1963 – 1967.
Council Offices Subiaco WA.
Eventually the Government agreed to the construction of laboratories and lecture rooms on the site of the Perth Technical School, as well as providing facilities for the Council to house its own office.
Pharmacy education consisted of students becoming indentured to a registered pharmacist for a period of four years, and part time attendance at lectures held at the Perth Technical School.
By 1959 radical changes were taking place nationally in the training syllabi, and the Council even approached the University of Western Australia to the
volume 4 no 35 September 2008
Pharmacy History Australia 5