Joseph Bancroft

Joseph Bancroft (21 February 1836 – 16 June 1894) was a surgeon, pharmacologist and parasitologist born in England, who emigrated to Queensland, Australia.

Bancroft was born in Stretford, near Manchester, Lancashire, the only son of Joseph Bancroft, a farmer, and his wife Mary, née Lane. He took a five-year apprenticeship with Dr Jeremiah Renshaw at Sale in Cheshire. He later studied at the Manchester Royal School of Medicine and Surgery (M.R.C.S., L.S.A., 1859), where he won several prizes. He took his medical degree at the University of St Andrews in 1859 and later became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. He practised at Nottingham until 1864, then emigrated to Queensland after being advised a warmer climate would improve his health.

Bancroft arrived in Brisbane on 29 October 1864, having travelled on the Lady Young as a surgeon. After a short holiday he began to practise in a residential quarter of Brisbane, and soon became a respected physician and surgeon. He was an early tenant of the (now heritage-listed) Athol Place on Wickham Terrace in Spring Hill.

In 1867 he was appointed visiting surgeon at the Brisbane General Hospital and became house surgeon in 1868. He resumed practice at Carlton in Wickham Terrace in 1870, found himself in much demand, but contrived to do a good deal of research. He was the discoverer of the medical properties of Duboisia myoporoides, which was afterwards largely used in ophthalmic surgery. In 1872 he investigated the properties of Duboisia hopwoodii a common ingredient in the eastern Australian variety of the native chewing mixture, pituri. In 1877 he travelled to the East, Europe and Africa, supposedly on holiday, however he could not refrain from studying diseases peculiar to each country.

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