William Henry Hosking

William Henry Hosking (1841 to 1917) was a New Zealand medical doctor, hospital superintendent, and pioneer of X-ray and radium work. He was born at Redruth in Cornwall, England, the son of an ironfounder, was schooled at Falmouth and Taunton and trained at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, gaining licences and memberships from the Society of Apothecaries, the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He sailed for New Zealand in 1863 aboard a ship held in quarantine at Bluff because of smallpox on board, and registered to practise in 1863 and again in 1869 at Ross and Masterton. Soon after news of Röntgen's discovery of X-rays, he imported the first six-inch induction coil into New Zealand, at Masterton in 1896, and probably produced X-rays within a year of the discovery. In 1910 he had public baths built in Masterton in honour of his wife and daughter. He died of leukemia in 1917 at Masterton.