Earle Northcroft

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Earle Fead Northcroft (1896–1962) was a New Zealand botanist and physician who helped study life in New Zealand and served as a doctor in several countries. He was part of the 1924 Chatham Islands scientific team. Northcroft was born in Christchurch, the only son of Ernest Northcroft, and his cousin was Sir Erima Northcroft, a lawyer and judge. In World War I he served with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and earned the British War Medal; at enlistment his job was a law clerk.

After the war he studied at the University of Otago, earning an MSc in 1924 with a thesis on the ecology of New Zealand plants at Lawyers Head. He then lectured in biology at Otago and gained a PhD at Victoria University College in Wellington in 1931. He was a member of the Otago Institute and one of two botanists on the 1924 Chatham Islands expedition. His findings were unpublished until 1975, when A.J. Healy released them after Northcroft’s death. He recorded 53 plant species not later catalogued by other researchers, but no specimens survive. Between 1923 and 1929 he studied blackberry biology (five papers) and wool fibres (one paper).

Northcroft later trained as a physician at the University of Edinburgh, earning MBChB in 1934. He worked in Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary, Royal Hospital for Sick Children, and City Fever Hospital, and in Hounslow Hospital in England. In the late 1930s he moved to Australia and joined the Royal Australian Air Force medical branch during World War II, running a hospital in Sydney. In August 1947 he was promoted to Squadron Leader as a part-time physician specialist.

In 1949 he returned to Dunedin to practice as a general practitioner and to teach at the Otago Medical School. He supported the arts, joining the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Association and serving on the committee of the Otago Arts Society. His wife Brenda Guthrie Northcroft wrote several books including a biography my husband, Another beloved physician. He died in Dunedin on 2 June 1962.