Diana Wyndham, with foreword by Michael Kirby, Norman Haire and the Study of Sex

Abstract

Diana Wyndham has created a fascinating account of a remarkable Australian who made his mark overseas in medicine. Norman Haire, born Norman Zions in Sydney in 1892, was an internationally known gynaecologist and sexologist who is better remembered today amongst the famous European and American sexologist cohort from the first half of the twentieth century than he is in his home country. The eleventh child of a Jewish Polish family living in Paddington, Sydney, he was a scholarship boy who attended Fort Street Model School and the University of Sydney, graduating with a medical degree in 1915. After first working briefly in Brisbane he moved to Newcastle Hospital as superintendent, where during the 1919 Influenza epidemic he was unfairly blamed for the death of a patient. This was enough for him to flee to England where he adopted the surname Haire, a translation of his father's original Polish surname, Zajac. During his early working years in Australia he also travelled as a ship's surgeon to Asia, which led to a lifelong interest in Oriental art and very gaudy and opulent use of Chinese ornamentation in his offices and homes.Wyndham has written a detailed biography with a slight psychological edge, attempting to work out what motivated the flamboyant Haire, often coming back to his homosexuality...