William John HancockPrint Page

The plaque commemorates electrical engineer and radiologist, William John Hancock (1864 - 1931).

Rontgen"s discovery of X-rays was published in 1895, and Hancock obtained the apparatus from London and demonstrated its use in Perth in August 1896. The Perth Public Hospital allocated him a small room and appointed him honorary radiographer in 1898.

For the next twenty-two years he worked as an engineer by day and contributed his services and equipment, valued at £500, to public patients on several afternoons and evenings each week.  It is estimated that he handled over 30,000 exposures.

In 1915 he was honorary radiologist at the Fremantle Base Hospital, where his apparatus and skills were invaluable in detecting bullets and shrapnel in wounded returned soldiers. Hancock was awarded the first Kelvin gold medal by the Royal Society of Western Australia in 1924. From 1915-27 he was a member of the Senate of the University of Western Australia which conferred on him an honorary doctorate of science in 1924.

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