61 Facts About Leader Stirling

Leader Dominic Stirling was an English missionary surgeon and former Health Minister in Tanzania.

Leader Stirling spent 14 years of service to the UMCA in Lulindi.

Leader Stirling then converted to Catholicism and joined the Benedictine Mission, working with them in Mnero, where he built another hospital.

Leader Stirling held this position for the next 22 years, being the last 5 as Health Minister by appointment of Julius Nyerere.

Besides his medical and political work, Leader Stirling was interested in Scouting.

Leader Stirling was born in England in 1906, the first of 4 siblings.

Leader Stirling's was of a family of ancient Scots and of doctors, including his uncle Harold Leader, who was a children's physician, his great-uncles Henry Pye-Smith and Rutherford Pye-Smith, and the cousins Charles Pye-Smith, a surgeon, and Jack Pye-Smith, all Physicians of the Guy's Hospital.

Leader Stirling was cousin of David Stirling founder of the Special Air Service.

Leader Stirling then joined the University of London in 1924 and chose the London Hospital as his medical school.

Leader Stirling graduated from medical school in July 1929, qualifying MRCS and LRCT in the same year.

Leader Stirling graduated MBBS, and later, in 1993, was elected FRCS, a very honourable and rare happening.

Leader Stirling then continued his work at the London Hospital as a Receiving Room Officer, then House Physician, and ultimately Resident Accoucheur, the most senior resident appointment.

Leader Stirling deemed himself "very, very lucky" for he got all the House Appointments he wanted and, hence, completed 3,5 years of his early career as a junior staff at the London Hospital.

In 1933 Leader Stirling left the London Hospital to work in a private practice in South London as a surgeon.

Leader Stirling then worked as Outpatient Surgical Officer at a nearby hospital from his private practice for a brief time, when he finally decided to "continue the upward climb on the ladder of specialization".

Leader Stirling applied for Medical Officer to the General Post Office, Resident Medical Officer to Hertford Hospital and Deputy Medical Superintendent to Sunderland Infirmary.

Leader Stirling got interviews for all of those positions but was undecided.

Leader Stirling was, according to the Bishop of the mission, "perhaps the most over-worked person in the diocese".

Leader Stirling's arrival was met with great enthusiasm by the mission: "the most joyful thing that has happened medically for a very long time".

Dr Frances Taylor and Dr Leader Stirling then divided the area and while the first would be based in Masasi, Stirling would relocate to Lulindi.

Leader Stirling built numerous Dispensaries, a Nursing School and started a Scouting group.

Dr Leader Stirling was intimately involved in this development, since he drew the scale-plans, selected a site, marked the foundations, employed brick makers, brick carriers, brick burners and bricklayers, and cut suitable trees into planks.

Leader Stirling then had the help of the mission carpenter in making windows and doors and local masons on trimming stone for foundations and floors.

Besides the more technical chores, Leader Stirling had a "small manual component" in the building of the hospital, completed in 1938.

Leader Stirling established and maintained a chain of 20 dispensaries to fill the lack of medical infrastructure in the region comprehending "almost to the coast and right down to the Mozambique border, the furthest a hundred miles from Lulindi".

Leader Stirling was invited two times to visit the capital of Kenya, Nairobi.

Leader Stirling was then summoned in 1942 by a friend to help with a plague epidemic.

Leader Stirling learned the Catholic faith at age ten, which he considered his true faith, but joined the Church of England as a student due to influence of friends.

Leader Stirling joins the Benedictine Mission and is sent to found a new hospital in Mnero; Mnero Diocesan Hospital.

The first Medical Director of Mnero Hospital, Dr Leader Stirling, led the construction of the hospital.

Thereafter, Dr Leader Stirling worked for 14 years in the hospital.

Besides the Hospital, Leader Stirling built a male Nurse School, started yet another Scouting group and starts his political career.

Leader Stirling departed Mnero to Dar es Salaam and met the Bishop of Moshi who appointed him to a position in Kibosho, at the slopes of the Kilimanjaro where he was supposed to start a new hospital.

At Soni Leader Stirling settled in and would work as a part-time visiting surgeon to two local hospitals: Lushoto Government Hospital and Bumbuli Church Hospital, in the latter he was part-time professor at the Medical Assistant Training School.

Leader Stirling never thought that he would follow that career, though, as his father would say that "politics is a dirty game".

However, in 1958, at the age of 52, Leader Stirling made his first public speech in Mnero, being the chairman of this event Julius Nyerere.

Leader Stirling was elected in 1958, unopposed, but would have to run again in 1960, as one part of the agreement of independence was the formation of a more representative Parliament.

Leader Stirling then ran for that district, even though Mbeya was 700 miles away and the roads were in bad condition.

Leader Stirling won his second election against a European coffee-farmer in 1960.

Leader Stirling would manage both activities as a parliamentary and missionary doctor since his "24 years of single-doctoring" were over at Mnero.

Leader Stirling had recently moved to Kibosho, where he wasn't popular enough to run and too distant from Mbeya.

Leader Stirling was elected and would keep his Parliamentary seat until 1980 after winning subsequent elections.

Leader Stirling travelled several thousand miles and visited 60 Districts and Regions for irregularities.

Leader Stirling was the chairman of the Special Commission of Inquiry into deaths in the sisal industry, historically a very important industry in Tanzania.

Leader Stirling informs that his report on the poor labour conditions brought improvements.

Indeed, while Minister, Leader Stirling started the Tanzania National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Program, unifying the scheme of treatment and extending it to the whole country.

Leader Stirling implemented reforms in the mental health scenario of the country, equipping all major hospitals of the country with psychiatric units.

Leader Stirling attended to the International Conference on Primary Health Care in Almaty from which originated the Alma Ata Declaration.

Leader Stirling met with the Minister of Health of the Soviet Union during this event.

Leader Stirling had a vast experience with all sorts of illnesses and medical problems during his work in his 3 hospitals.

Leader Stirling was responsible in organising hospital work and routine.

Leader Stirling was innovative in being one of the first to drain paraplegia-causing tuberculous abscesses.

Leader Stirling was able to align local customs with modern medical norms in the case of circumcision surgeries, which were performed by untrained tribal leaders with little to no antiseptic precautions before his intervention.

Leader Stirling noted local differences between the places he worked.

Leader Stirling started his long career in Scouting at the age of 11.

Leader Stirling started a new troop while working in private practice in South London.

However, since the Commissioner had to return to England after breaking his leg and this group was based 20 miles away, Leader Stirling discontinued the group.

In 1941 the region had already around a dozen troops of Scouts and a district rally was promoted by Leader Stirling, which was attended by 124 out of the 132 scouts then registered.

Leader Stirling attended to the great Jubilee Jamboree of Scouting at Sutton Coldfield, England in 1957 with a group of 30 Tanzanians where he met Queen Elizabeth II.

Leader Stirling became a Tanzanian citizen following the country's independence, in 1961.

Not long after widowing, Leader Stirling married his second wife Anna Chilunda, an African nurse trained by his nursing school in Lulindi, but a widow Princess.