Person Page - 373

McDowall-Crombie.

WEDDING of Miss Janet Crombie, daughter of the late William Crombie, Esq., of Greenhill, and niece of Mrs. James Crombie, of Oriel, Oriel Road. Clayfield, to Dr. Valentine McDowall, youngest son of the former Surveyor-General of Queensland, took place last Friday after noon, the 12th inst., at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Creek Street. The service was taken by the venerable pastor of the Park Presbyterian Church, the Rev. David Mitchell. The bride was given away by her aunt, Mrs. James Crombie, from whose house the marriage took place, and her sister, Miss May Crombie, acted as her bridesmaid, and Mr. J. W. Hesslop as best man. The bride's dress was of white messaline, trimmed with ruching, worn with a berthe fastened over
a vest of Brussels net. She wore orange blossom and tulle veil, and carried a shower bouquet of roses, stephanotis, and lilies. The bridesmaid wore white Swiss muslin over glace, adorned with valenciennes lace, edging muslin frills; white chip hat with shaded ribbons, roses and foliage. Her bouquet was of shaded roses, tied with pale blue streamers. The pretty bouquets were made by the London and American florists. The church was decorated for the occasion, with palms and flowers and festoons of white Japanese crepe paper. A bell of white roses was suspended over the bridal couple. The grand new organ heard for the first time in nuptial music was skilfully played by the organist, Mr. Phillips, who chose the pretty Wedding March from Lohengrin, less familiar than that of Mendelssohn.
Mrs. James Crombie entertained a number of guests at her pretty house, Oriel, Clayfield, Eschenhagen catering for their entertainment. Among the relatives present were Mrs. Sword, Mrs. John Cameron, and Mrs. Donaldson. Among the many wedding presents given by friends of the bride were also presenta tions made to the bridegroom from friends in the South, his best man, Mr. J. W. Heaslop, of Brisbane, who is a medical student in Sydney, accompanying his friend from the South for the occasion. The bride's travelling dress was of dark blue voile, pleated skirt and bolero jacket over white vest; Breton hat trimmed with blue. The bride and brides maid's dresses and many of the guests were made by Miss Grogan, Kent's Buildings, Adelaide Street.
It will be remembered that Surveyor-General McDowall was one of the first victims of the Retrenchment System, which smote this state simultaneously with Federation. Mr. McDowall at this juncture took a house in Oriel Road, in close proximity to that of Mrs. James Crombie; and the attach ment between his medical son, then a student, and Mrs. Crombie's niece, their homes being not many yards apart, was a sequence. The young couple have left for Tasmania, where the bridegroom's parents are now. Queensland Figaro, 18 January 1906.¹

McDowall, Valentine (1881-1957)
by D. J. Robinson

Valentine McDowall (1881-1957), medical practitioner and wireless and television pioneer, was born on 14 February 1881, at Maryborough, Queensland, son of Archibald McDowall, and his wife Ada Sarah, née Coutts. He attended Brisbane Grammar School in 1895-99, then entered the University of Sydney medical school in 1900, graduating M. B. in 1905 before serving as a resident medical officer at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney. On 12 January 1906 he married Janet Laurence Crombie, a grazier's daughter, at St Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Brisbane. Moving to Laidley in 1907, McDowall employed a battery-powered X-ray unit in his general practice. In 1915 he joined the Australian Imperial Force as captain, Army Medical Corps, and served in Egypt with the 1st Australian General Hospital, the 2nd and 14th Field Ambulance and from June 1916 with the 1st Australian Dermatological Hospital. He returned to Australia in May 1917 and his A. I. F. appointment ended in August.

Having taken his Ch. M. degree in Sydney in 1917, McDowall returned to Brisbane in 1919 and practised as a specialist in radiology and dermatology. After six months study in the United States of America in 1926 at the Rochester Clinic and elsewhere, he was reputedly the first doctor in Queensland to use radium in treatment. In the 1930s he worked as a radiographer and radiotherapist from Wickham Terrace and was senior honorary radiologist at the Brisbane General Hospital in 1919-34.

During World War II McDowall was temporary lieutenant-colonel, A. I. F., commanding the 117th A. G. H. early in 1942. He continued service as a visiting specialist in radiology at Greenslopes Repatriation General and other Brisbane hospitals.

Meanwhile he had been president of the Queensland branch of the British Medical Association in 1925, a founding fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, a fellow of the faculty of Radiologists of England and a foundation fellow of the College of Radiologists of Australasia (president, 1947). He advised on the founding of the Queensland Radium Institute and was a foundation member of the Biophysics Standing Advisory Committee (Queensland). He published in the Medical Journal of Australia and the British Journal of Ophthalmology.

From 1921 McDowall (with Thomas Elliot) pioneered regular programmes of recorded music on 4CM, his radio station at Preston House, Brisbane; they claimed the first live broadcast in Queensland from the stage of His Majesty's Theatre. In the 1930s they shifted 4CM to the old windmill on Wickham Terrace to experiment with low-resolution television broadcasting, and in October 1935 transmitted a legible page of the Courier Mail. Experiments continued until the war. Part of the equipment is preserved in the collection of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, of which McDowall was a member. He also belonged to the Royal Society of Queensland and the Queensland Club.

Kind and courteous to his patients, McDowall was always a keen sportsman who had been captain of his school's cricket team and a Sydney university rowing Blue; in later life he went shooting with his brother Dr Sandy McDowall and took his family yachting and deep-sea fishing. Enthusiastic about machinery, he had one of the first cars at Laidley and served on the committee of the Royal Queensland Aero Club in 1935-41, while securing a private pilot's licence. He was a competent woodworker and manufactured and demonstrated excellent fireworks.

McDowall died at Ascot of cardiac disease on 22 October 1957, survived by his son and daughter. He was cremated after a Presbyterian service. Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 10, (MUP), 1986.²