Blake-Palmer Geoffrey
Geoffrey Blake-Palmer
Blake-Palmer was a medical doctor with an interest in anthropology and particularly archaeology. His medical career was a distinguished one in mental health, being superintendant of Seacliff Mental Hospital near Dunedin and ending his career as Director General of Mental Health in Wellington. In the position he was instrumental in starting the trend to far less incarceration of mental patients. He was in the army medical corps in WW2 serving in Greece and the Middle East. He was awarded the Greek Silver Cross.
He was President of the New Zealand Archaeological Association.
His great contribution to New Zealand literature was to cancel a lobotomy operation scheduled for Janet Frame.
Obituary: 1981 New Zealand Medical Journal 93:56.
Bibiliography (Not including medical papers)
History:
1940 The Birth, Growth and Death of a Legend. Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand 69:165-181.
Archaeology:
1947 New Zealand Archaeology and Air Photography, Journal of the Polynesian Society 56:233-41.
1951 Research of Earthworks, Journal of the Polynesian Society 60:53-54.
1956 An Otago Coastal Occupation Site With Dinornis Remains. Journal of the Polynesian Society 65:161-63.
1958 Henry Devenish Skinner — An Appreciation, Journal of the Polynesian Society 67:97-103. (H D Skinner)
Anthropology:
1946 Mana — Some Christian and Moslem Parallels, Journal of the Polynesian Society 55:263-76.
1954 Tohungaism and Makutu. Some Beliefs and Practices of the Present Day Maori, Journal of the Polynesian Society 63:147-63.
1963 Maori Patients in Mental Hospitals, Journal of the Polynesian Society 72:420.
