REVEREND JOHN FLYNN
Atwenty dollar note won’t buy much as much as it did when it was first introduced in Australia in 1966. Back then the note depicted two great pioneers of aviation in Australia, Lawrence Hargrave, whose experiments with box kites influenced the Wright brothers, and Charles
Kingsford Smith, who made the first non-stop air flight across the Australian continent and the first trans-pacific flight.
But in 1994 when the first polymer notes were issued another great pioneer of the air took his place on one side of the $20 note. He was John Flynn, a teacher and preacher, who made it his mission to improve the lives of people living in isolated areas of Australia’s vast interior.
Flynn, born on November 25, 1880, established the Australian Inland Mission (AIM), caring for the spiritual, mental and physical wellbeing of people spread across huge stretches of the Australian outback. But his best-known achievement was establishing the aerial medical network now known as the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
After his ordination in 1911, Flynn went to the South Australian Outback and saw the health problems of Aborigines and people in isolated areas. He established AIM in 1912 he helped establish the AIM. Since only two doctors served an area of some 300,000sq km in Western Australia and 1,500,000sq km in the Northern Territory, he opened a network of bush hospitals and set up a travelling nurse service.
In 1917 Lieutenant John Clifford Peel, a young airman, wrote in an article for publication in the journal saying: “In the not very distant future I can see a missionary doctor administering to the needs of men and women scattered between Wyndham and Cloncurry, Darwin and Marree.” By the time the article appeared, in October 1918,
Peel had been killed in action but the words inspired Flynn.
The first official flying doctor was Dr Kenyon St Vincent Welch, who took off for the first time from the Cloncurry base on May 17, 1928 with Arthur Affleck as pilot. In his first year he covered more than 30,000km seeing 255 patients.