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William Crooke (politician)
 William Crooke (baptised 4 August 1815 – 10 December 1901) was a surgeon and politician in colonial Australia. He served in both houses of the parliament of Tasmania during the 1850s.[1] BiographyBorn in Derreen, County Cork, Ireland, Crooke was baptised on 4 August 1815.[2] Around 1839–41,[1][3] he arrived in Van Diemen's Land, which would become known as Tasmania.[4] He was a surgeon in the convict department of St Mary's Hospital in Hobart Town.[5][6] From 1843 to 1847, he held the position of house surgeon at the General Hospital, Hobart Town.[7] He served as a member of the Tasmanian Legislative Council for Buckingham from 1855 to 1856,[8] which he unsuccessfully contested in 1853,[1][9] before serving in the Tasmanian House of Assembly for Franklin from 1856 to 1857.[1] He proposed unsuccessfully for the Tasmanian government to fund £20,000 per year (equivalent to more than A$3 million in 2015) for the establishment of a state-owned university to rival mainland Australia.[10] In 1857, Crooke moved to Victoria, where he ran a surgery in Fitzroy, Melbourne. He was appointed Victorian public vaccinator after successfully identifying an outbreak of smallpox.[3] He was also Australia's first medical practitioner to identify diseased milk as a factor in the production of diphtheria.[3] He died at age 86 at St Vincent's Hospital, Fitzroy, on 10 December 1901.[5] References
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