Dr William Purdie

Dr William Purdie had a horror introduction to colonisation when cholera broke out on the Mooltan, the ship to Otago for which he was medical officer in 1849. Born in Airdrie in Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1797, the doctor had been in practice for 20 years in the Edinburgh before deciding to emigrate with his wife and children. Paid berths on an emigrant ship in exchange for medical services must have seemed like a good deal – that is, until signs of cholera appeared soon after the Mooltan’s departure from Scotland. Dr Purdie did his best to contain the contagion but nine passengers died and many others were struck down for much of the voyage. He faced bitter criticism from those aboard ship, but a subsequent enquiry vindicated his treatment as the best that could have been offered in the circumstances.

He was, in any case, a welcome addition to the small Dunedin settlement. The doctor quickly built up a substantial medical practice but also found time to play a full part in public affairs. His house, at the corner of Pitt and London streets, was for a long time the only one above the North Dunedin flat. It had been built originally by the survey party for Captain Cargill but rejected by him. A small section of its wattle and daub wall is on display in the next gallery (beside the replica cottage). Travellers to and from the North East Valley were cheered to see its lights on the hillside as they made their way across the otherwise barren and swampy flat.

Dr Purdie had long been an enthusiastic supporter of the temperance cause and pushed it hard in Otago. He was also a keen churchman who undertook mission work and worshipped at Knox Church, although he was originally a Baptist. He served on numerous committees and organisations and was a member of the Provincial Council. This portrait shows him in his Edinburgh days in his early 30s when a clean shaven face was in fashion. He came to Otago a decade or more later and was generally remembered by the settlers as a sparely built man with a slight stoop. Dr Purdie died in Dunedin in 1876, aged 79.