John Ewart (doctor)

John Ewart was a Scottish-born doctor who spent his career in New Zealand and served as medical superintendent of Wellington Hospital from 1889 to 1909. He was born in Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, on 14 May 1858, attended Annan Academy and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, gaining an MB and CM in 1880 and an MD in 1885. He studied surgery under Joseph Lister, the British surgeon who developed antiseptic surgery, and worked in hospitals in England and Wales before emigrating to New Zealand in 1887 in search of a better climate. After two years as surgeon at Timaru Hospital he took the Wellington post, which he held for twenty years while remaining honorary surgeon to the hospital from 1909, when he entered private practice. He oversaw the hospital's expansion, was known as an able administrator, improved standards of aseptic treatment and expanded the training of nurses. The tuberculosis hospital that opened in 1930, later called Ewart Hospital, was named after him. He retired in 1922 and died in Wellington on 5 August 1939.