Person
Ellery, Reginald Spencer (1897 - 1955)
- Born
- 12 August 1897
Rose Park, South Australia, Australia - Died
- 27 December 1955
Prahran, Victoria, Australia - Occupation
- Psychiatrist
Summary
Reg Ellery was a pioneer of psychoanalysis in Australia and the most prominent psychiatrist in Australia between wars. Between 1923 and 1931 he worked in various capacities, and at several medical facilities, for the Victorian Department of Mental Health. Even at this early stage he attracted controversy. In 1924 a Royal Commission was convened into his attempts to improve conditions at the Children's Cottages where unsanitary conditions and widespread infection were rampant: he was exonerated. From 1931 he was in private practice, bureaucratic resistance to psychoanalytical methods having proved too much for him. He initiated new treatments emanating from Europe and seemed to delight in taking on the medical and psychiatric establishment. He was a founding Member of the Medico-Legal Society of Victoria and attended the first meeting of the Association of Australasian Psychiatrists.
Details
Chronology
- 1923
- Education - MB BS, University of Melbourne
- 1923 - 1924
- Career position - Junior Medical Officer, Kew Asylum for the Insane, Melbourne
- 1925 - 1927
- Career position - Medical Officer, Sunbury State Mental Hospital, Victoria
- 1925 - 1931
- Career position - Psychiatric clinic assistant, Royal Melbourne Hospital
- 1927 - 1931
- Career position - Medical Officer, Mont Park Hospital, Melbourne
- 1931 -
- Career position - Consultant alienist, Women's Hospital, Melbourne
- 1931
- Education - MD, University of Melbourne
- 1931
- Career event - Founding member, Medico-Legal Society of Victoria
- 1931 - 1946
- Career position - Honorary consultant Psychiatrist, Alfred Hospital, Melbourne
- 1931 - 1955
- Career position - In private practice
- 1940 - 1955
- Career position - Foundation Director, Melbourne Institute for Psycho-Analysis
- 9 October 1946
- Career event - Attended first meeting of the Association of Australasian Psychiatrists
Related entries
Archival resources
State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection
- Reginald Spencer Ellery - Records, 1910 - 1950, MS 7979; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details
Published resources
Books
- Ellery, R. S., The cow jumped over the moon: private papers of a psychiatrist (Melbourne: Cheshire, 1956), 287 pp. Details
Book Sections
- Gurciullo, Sebastian, 'Ellery, Reginald Spencer (1897-1955), Psychiatrist and Author' in Australian Dictionary of Biography, John Ritchie, ed., vol. 14 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1996), pp. 89-90. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A140102b.htm. Details
Journal Articles
- Kaplan, R. M., 'Psychiatric gadfly: in search of Reginald Ellery', Australasian psychiatry, 20 (2012), 7-13. https://doi.org/10.1177/1039856211430144. Details
- Kaplan, Robert M., 'Reginald Ellery, a towering and multifaceted figure in Australian psychiatry', Australasian psychiatry, 19 (5) (2011), 444-5. https://doi.org/10.3109/10398562.2011.613474. Details
- Kaplan, Robert M., 'The First Psychiatric Royal Commission: Reg Ellery and the Attendants at Kew Hospital', Health and History, 16 (1) (2014), 45-65. Details
- Kaplan, Robert M., 'A radical psychiatrist and the law: the forensic career of Reg Ellery', Australasian Psychiatry, 23 (2) (2015), 183-6. Details
- Kaplan, Robert M., 'Reg Ellery and the establishment of psychoanalysis in Australia', Health & History, 17 (1) (2015), 37-52. Details
- Kaplan, Robert M., 'The MJA editor, the radical psychiatrist, and the communist agenda: Mervyn Archdall and Reg Ellery', Health and history, 22 (2) (2020), 85-90. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5401.healthhist.22.2.00185. Details
- Martin, I., 'Reginald Spencer Ellery', Medical journal of Australia, 1956:1 (1956), 681. Details
Resources
- Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q7308872. Details
- VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/8851435. Details
- 'Ellery, Reg S (18970812-19551227)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-579706. Details
Theses
- Stevenson, T., 'Measuring the stars and observing the less visible: Australia's participation in the Astrographic Catalogue and Carte du Ciel', Thesis, University of Sydney, 2015, 381 pp. Details
Gavan McCarthy [P004098] and Helen Cohn
Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 6 October 2023
- Foundation Supporter - Committee to Review Australian Studies in Tertiary Education