Isie Younger Ross

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Isie Younger Ross, born Isabella Henrietta Younger, was an Australian doctor who opened the first clinic for babies in Victoria.

She was born on 15 July 1887 in Warrnambool, the first child of Henrietta Dawson Younger and John Younger, a storekeeper. She did very well in school, finishing as dux at Hohenlohe College, and she passed the matriculation exam for the University of Melbourne in 1905. She started medical studies at the University of Melbourne in 1910, then studied in Scotland and earned an MB ChB from the University of Glasgow in 1914.

After graduation, she worked in Glasgow and Edinburgh, then moved to London to be a house physician at Queen’s Hospital for Children. She also worked at the Lying-In Hospital and helped wounded World War I soldiers arriving by ambulance at Waterloo station. In 1916 she worked for a time in a military hospital in Kent. She left in 1917 to study child welfare in Chicago with Dr Herman Bundesen, and returned to Australia in June that year.

With help from Mrs J. J. Hemphill, in 1917 she established the Baby Health Centre at Richmond, the first such clinic in Victoria. In 1918 she helped form the Victorian Baby Health Centres Association (VBHCA). The VBHCA appointed Dr Vera Scantlebury as Medical Officer and Sister Muriel Peck to run the training school. By 1919, eight centres in Melbourne and Geelong cared for 2,804 babies. By 1921 there were 20 centres, some receiving government funding.

In 1938 she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her work as secretary of the Baby Health Centre Association of Victoria. She was active in the Lyceum Club and served as its president from 1938 to 1940.

She married John Ross in London on 8 April 1916. Their only son died in New Guinea during World War II. Isie Younger Ross died on 2 April 1956 in South Yarra, aged 68. Her husband had died in 1955. Later, a fashion show raised money for the Isabella Younger Ross Memorial Fund and a plaque honoring her work was placed at the Queen Elizabeth Maternal and Child Welfare Centre in Carlton.