Photograph of University of Otago Graduates

1897

Mellor Collection, Box 16

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The year 1897 was a bumper one for Otago. This graduate photograph depicts a number of men and women who went on to make their own personal mark on the world’s stage. Three notables include: Joseph W. Mellor (second on right, back row), who not only secured a senior scholarship in chemical science, but with his MSc thesis on cyanide process, won the Exhibition 1851 Science Scholarship; Margaret Barnett Cruickshank (second on right, middle row) who was New Zealand’s first woman general medical practitioner; and in the front row, Ethel Benjamin, New Zealand’s first female lawyer.