Australian Women's Register

An initiative of The National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW) in conjunction with The University of Melbourne

Skip to content

Browse Entries

Exhibitions

  • Faith, Hope and Charity Australian Women and Imperial Honours: 1901-1989

Use Trove to find more resources by/about this Woman

  • Trove

Mann, Ida Caroline (1893 - 1983)

Professor Dame, DBE

Born
6 February 1893
West Hamstead, London, England
Died
November 1983
Occupation
Ophthalmologist
Alternative Names
  • Gye, Caroline (pseudonym)
  • Gye, Ida (married name)

Summary

Dame Ida Mann was a distinguished English ophthalmologist whose long-term association with Australia began when she moved to Perth, Western Australia, after World War II. She diagnosed a trachoma epidemic amongst Indigenous people in the Kimberleys and traveled extensively in Western Australia in order to examine and treat Indigenous people with trachoma. Mann became convinced that better housing and sanitation, rather than administration of antibiotics, would improve this health crisis. She was appointed as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire on 14 June 1980 for services to the welfare of Aboriginal people.

Details

Ida Mann was educated at the London School of Medicine for Women and St Mary's Hospital. She qualified Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS), Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians (LRCP) and Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MB BS) in 1920 and Doctor of Science (DSc) in 1924. She was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (FRCS) in 1927. In London Mann worked at the Elizabeth Garrett-Anderson Hospital for Women, the Central London Eye Hospital, and the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital. She flew to Melbourne in 1939 to present a paper to the Ophthalmological Society of Australia. Mann became Reader in Ophthalmology at the University of Oxford in 1941. She was Titular Professor there from January 1945 until 30 September 1947. Mann was also a Fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford.

Mann resigned from Oxford and emigrated to Australia in 1949 with her husband, Professor William Gye (whom she married in December 1944). Prof Gye died in 1952. Mann then began a four year investigation into the nature and extent of trachoma amongst Indigenous people in the Kimberleys. These studies also took her to Papua New Guinea and the Pacific islands.

Mann published extensively in the area of eye anatomy and eye disease, publishing many scientific articles and several books. She also wrote on her travels and findings relating to trachoma, published under her married name or pseudonym, Caroline Gye. These were China 13 and The cockney and the crocodile.

Mann received an honorary Doctor of Science from Murdoch University (Perth, Western Australia) in 1983. She died later the same year at the age of ninety.

Sources used to compile this entry: Radi, Heather (ed.), 200 Australian Women: A Redress Anthology, Women's Redress Press, Sydney, 1988, 258 pp. Also available at http://nla.gov.au/nla.arc-78644; http://www.federation.vic.gov.au/firsts.pdf; http://www.ruralhealth.org.au/pdf/declare1.pdf; http://www.snof.org/maladies/embryohist.html.

Archival resources

JS Battye Library of West Australian History, State Library of Western Australia

  • Papers of Ida Mann, 1893 - 1983, ACC 3673A; JS Battye Library of West Australian History, State Library of Western Australia. Details

National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection

  • Papers of Ida Mann, 1967, MS 2023; National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection. Details

Published resources

The Australian Women's Register Exhibitions

Books

  • Gye, Caroline (pseudonym for Ida Mann), China 13, Faber, London, 1964, 263 pp. Details
  • Gye, Caroline (pseudonym for Ida Mann), The cockney and the crocodile (large print edition), Ulverscroft Large Print Bks, Leicester, 1992, 531 (large print) pp. Details
  • Mann, Ida, Developmental abnormalities of the eye, 2 edn, British Medical Association, London, 1957. Details
  • Mann, Ida, Culture, race, climate, and eye disease; an introduction to the study of geographical ophthalmology., Charles Thomas, Springfield, Ill., USA, 1961. Details
  • Mann, Ida, The development of the human eye, British Medical Association, London, 1964, 316 pp. Details
  • Mann, Ida, The Chase : an autobiography, Golding, Ros, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle, W.A., 1986, 217 pp. Details
  • Mann, Ida and Pirie, Antoinette, The science of seeing, Penguin, Harmondsworth, England, 1946, 220 pp. Details

Journal Articles

  • Bron A. J., 'Memorial to Ida Mann: obituary', Archives of ophthalmology, vol. 102, 1984, pp. 1713-1715. Details

Newspaper Articles

  • 'Ida Mann - tribute to the late Professor, obituary of famed opthalmologist', West-sight, April, 1984, p. 1. Details

Reports

  • Mann, Ida, Ophthalmic survey of the South-West portion of Western Australia: final report of the surveys undertaken for the Public Heath Department of Western Australia., Government Printer, Perth, 1956, 36 pp. Details

Online Resources

See also

Clare Land

Created: 24 April 2002, Last modified: 1 June 2010

Comments

Leave a comment

Comment guidelines

(required)
(required)

Site-wide information and acknowledgements

National Foundation for Australian Women The University of Melbourne, eScholarship Research Centre

http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/IMP0041b.htm

The Australian Women's Register is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License