Edward Hulme

Edward Hulme (1812 to 1876) was an English-born surgeon who spent the last two decades of his life in New Zealand, where he ran medical care for the Otago province. Born in Hythe, Kent, the son of an army captain, he was apprenticed at sixteen to Sir Charles Bell at Middlesex Hospital, took his medical degree at the University of St Andrews by 1839 and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He practised in Exeter, then studied mental health in Paris and midwifery in Dublin. After emigrating in 1856 he became provincial surgeon and health officer for Otago and the first medical superintendent of Dunedin Hospital and its mental health facility. When the 1861 gold rush overwhelmed local services he pressed provincial officials to upgrade the general hospital and build a separate mental hospital, although the source describes him as short tempered and abrupt with patients. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1866 and died in Dunedin in December 1876. His house and surgery, Hulme's Court, is a Category I Heritage New Zealand historic place.