World War II Service and International Coordination of Research
It is fair to say that by the start of World War II, Charles Kellaway was the most prominent medical research figure in Australia, and – alongside Burnet and Eccles – amongst the most well regarded by the international scientific community. Even before the outbreak of hostilities, however, he moved away from the laboratory and into administrative and consultative roles. In the late 1930s he had supported the nascent blood bank work of Ian Wood and Lucy Bryce at the Hall Institute. When the war began, he gave over much of the institute's facilities and staff to the Australian Red Cross for wide-scale blood collection and storage, in addition to the blood typing of hundreds of thousands of service personnel. Having rejoined the Army Medical Directorate first as an honorary Lieutenant Colonel and Director of Hygiene (1939–40), and then honorary Colonel and Director of Pathology (1940–42), Kellaway was also inducted into the Royal Australian Air Force's Flying Personnel Research Committee (FPRC). In 1941–42, at the behest of the British War Cabinet, Kellaway extensively toured the USA, Canada and the UK in order to facilitate inter-Allied collaboration on wartime medical research. This led, on his return, to Kellaway adopting the role of Scientific Liaison Officer to the Australian Army, serving on the Physiological Sub-committee of the Chemical Defence Board and chairing the Armoured Fighting Vehicles Committee, in addition to his ongoing FPRC contribution. While many of these roles were important from a coordination and direction perspective, their outcomes were less visible than other projects such as the Fairley's malaria research unit in Cairns. Kellaway's own laboratory work finally ceased in 1943. However, he was well aware that wartime demands had opened the coffers of the NH&MRC and fostered a much greater commitment from the Commonwealth to supporting – and indeed nurturing – the Australian medical research culture that he had helped foster.
Read more about this topic: Charles Kellaway, Biography
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