John A. Gilruth

Who was John A. Gilruth?

John Anderson Gilruth FRSE was a veterinary scientist and administrator. He is particularly noted for being Administrator of the Northern Territory from 1912 to 1918, when he was recalled after an angry mob demanded that he resign. This incident is known as the Darwin Rebellion.

He went to school in Arbroath and Dundee, then served two years as clerk to an Arbroath solicitor before going to Glasgow Veterinary College, now the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Glasgow in 1887. He was admitted to membership of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, London, in 1892. He then accepted appointment as a government veterinary surgeon in New Zealand.

In New Zealand from 1893, he spent three years investigating stock diseases, then a year at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. In 1896, on returning to New Zealand, he was appointed chief veterinarian and government bacteriologist. He was appointed a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1907. In 1908, he accepted the foundation chair of veterinary pathology at the University of Melbourne.