The downfall of Dr Dutton

Dr Dutton’s problems were all his own doing.
Doctors were often held to be men deserving of great respect especially in remote places where they were called out and it took them considerable effort to minister to patients.
But William Henry Dutton was hardly worthy of respect. A womaniser, alcoholic and generally unpleasant, it’s hardly a wonder he lost his first job in New Zealand before he even started it.
Dutton was hired by Arrowtown Hospital Trustees in 1894 to replace their last doctor. He was coming from Australia and had beaten out 31 other candidates.
He was hired as a surgeon and the Otago Witness newspaper reported he had a string of letters after his name.
But even as the offer of a job was being made, Australian newspapers were reporting , with some glee, the salacious tales of his well publicised divorce.
It even turned out some of his references were forged. One was from the Bishop of Goulburn who admitted he knew Dutton’s parents and they were respectable people but he would not have written a reference that described Dutton as having ‘steady habits”
Reports were coming in from Australia of Dutton’s divorce case from his wife Mary Dent Oswald for adultery, cruelty and habitual drunkenness. There was also a suggestion that she was so afraid of him that she and their infant son spent the night outside in cold weather rather than go back inside - after which the baby died.
Evidence of another doctor he had been in partnership with spoke of his drinking, his bad language to his wife, a chemist nearby told of getting into a fight with a drunk Dutton and domestic servants said he was inappropriately intimate with them.
Dutton himself blamed everything on his wife. And to a lesser extent to his three children.
They had married in 1884 when Mary was 17 - and she came into a lot of money after the death of her father.
They were ill-suited. Mary was from a refined family while Dutton was much rougher and everything he had had come from his own hard work.
The divorce was granted and Dutton headed for New Zealand.
The news that his job no longer existed came to him only after he landed but it didn’t stop him. Dutton set up a private hospital in the New Orleans Hotel and much to the public hospital’s chagrin turned out to be more popular than the doctor who took his place.
He worked for a bit then took a short trip back to Victoria before returning to Otago, working between Gore and Invercargill for a bit before settling in Queenstown.
For a while he did well for himself, affecting some amazing cures and was popular for it.
He wrote one book, called The Bird of Paradise, that was supposedly a work of fiction, but in fact was about himself with the facts twisted to reflect better on him.
But it got a lukewarm reception and Dutton went back to drinking.
At only 38, the drinking caught up with him and he died on November 18, 1896. His body was returned to Australia and he was buried at the Geelong Western Public Cemetery.
Picture from Te Papa’s collection.​