Aussie historian, author & entertainer Jim Haynes joins Overnight each week for his unique knowledge of the not-so-famous characters from Australia’s history. This week Jim shines the spotlight on Joseph Beeston.

Joseph Lievesley Beeston was born in Newcastle in 1859. The son of the traffic manager on the new Newcastle to Maitland Railway, he was educated in Newcastle and then went to study medicine in London and later attended the Dublin College of Surgeons.

Beeston practised medicine in Newcastle and became President of the NSW British Medical Association and Honorary Surgeon at Newcastle Hospital. He was also President of the Newcastle School of Arts and the Newcastle Agricultural and Horticultural Society. In 1908 he was appointed a lifetime Liberal member to the NSW Parliamentary Upper House.

He served as Honorary Captain in the Army Medical Staff Corps from 1891 and enlisted on the outbreak of war in September 1914. As Lieutenant Colonel he was Officer in Charge of the 4th Field Ambulance at Gallipoli and was awarded the CMG and VD.

He contracted malaria and was invalided to Wandsworth Hospital London and upon recovery served as Assistant Director of Medical Services to the 2nd Division. In 1916 he returned to Australia and wrote the book from which the pieces used here were taken, ‘Five Months At Anzac’, the same year. He died in 1921.

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