Gordon Clunes Mackay Mathison
Born	10 August 1883 Stanley, Victoria, Australia
Died	18 May 1915 (aged 31) Alexandria, Egypt
Cause of death	Killed in action (gunshot wound)
Nationality	Australian
Scientific career
Fields	Respiratory physiology

Gordon Clunes Mackay Mathison FRCP (10 August 1883 – 18 May 1915) was a physician, medical researcher, and soldier.^[1]

Appointed the first director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia, he died on 18 May 1915, from wounds received in action on 10 May 1915 during the Gallipoli campaign, before he could take up the position.

The eldest of the three children of Hector Munro Mathison (1850-1895),^[2] a State School headmaster, and Mary Martha Mathison (1860-1942),^[3] née Barber, Gordon Clunes Mackay Mathison was born at Stanley, near Beechworth, Victoria on 10 August 1883. An older brother, also known as Gordon Clunes Mackay Mathison, had died on 13 January 1883, aged six months.^[4]

Soon after his birth, the family moved to Elsternwick, Victoria, where both his father and younger brother Robert Mackay (born 1894) died in 1895.

He attended Elsternwick State School, where his father and mother both taught, and his father was the headmaster.^[5]

He attended Caulfield Grammar School from 1896 to 1900,^[6] where his scholarship and good character were later remembered.^{[7][8][9][10][11]}

As a member of Ormond College, Mathison studied medicine at the University of Melbourne, receiving many academic awards, from 1901 to 1905.^[12][13][14]

Mathison's research career began as a University of Melbourne Scholar studying physiology. In 1907 he travelled to England to take up an appointment as a Sharpey Scholar at University College London.^[15] He received a Beit Memorial Fellowship in 1910 to conduct research at University College Hospital, where he was awarded a DSc for his research into the physiology of respiration.

During this period he focused on the effects of asphyxia, and was commissioned by the Royal Society to investigate the causes of altitude sickness.^[16][17]

In September 1913 Mathison was appointed Sub-Director of Pathology and Sub-Dean of the Clinical School at the Melbourne Hospital; and, on 23 April 1915, he was nominated as the first director of the nascent Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Australia's first pathological research institute.

He did not survive to take up the position.^[18]

While in the United Kingdom, Mathison had been active in the University of London Officers’ Training Corps^[16][19] In August 1914, soon after the outbreak of the World War I, he enlisted in the 2nd Field Ambulance, Australian Army Medical Corps. He embarked with his unit on HMAT A18 Wiltshire from Melbourne to Egypt on 19 October 1914.^[20] Mathison was attached as a medical officer to the 5th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force at the time of the Battle of Gallipoli.

On 10 May 1915 while resting outside of the aid station where he had been operating, Mathison was wounded by a stray bullet at Cape Helles.^[21] He was evacuated to Deaconesses Hospital, Alexandria, Egypt, where he died of his wounds on 18 May 1915, and was buried in the War Memorial Cemetery, at Chatby, near Alexandria.^[22] The Imperial War Graves Commission headstone erected over Mathison's grave bears the inscription: HE BEING MADE PERFECT IN A SHORT TIME FULFILLED A LONG TIME.^[22]

The University of Melbourne established a triennial lecture on medical research in Mathison's honour using an endowment from friends of Mathison;^[25][26] and, on Friday, 18 May 1917, a memorial tablet was unveiled at the Melbourne Hospital.^[27] Those present at the unveiling included Mathison's mother, personal friends of Mathison, Sir Harry Allen, the dean of the faculty of medicine at the University of Melbourne, Sir John Grice, chairman of the Melbourne Hospital committee, Dr. MacFarland, the vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne, members of the University council, members of the medical profession, and members of the Melbourne Hospital committee. Testimony to his attainments, character. and scholarship ("his death was referred to as a national calamity") were given by Sir Harry Allen, Captain Philip Beauchamp Sewell, AAMC, who would also be killed in action not long after,^[28] and Sir John Grice. Sir Harry Allen unveiled the memorial tablet (for the text of the tablet, see box at right).

A bequest from Mary Mathison in memory of her son was used to establish the Gordon Clunes Mathison Research Scholarship at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research^[29]

His name is located at panel 183 in the Commemorative Area at the Australian War Memorial.

• List of Caulfield Grammar School people

• Personal: Mr. Gordon C. Mathison, M.B., B.S., The Argus, (1 March 1910), p.7.
• Australian Casualties: Two More Lists (25th and 26th Lists): Killed: Victoria (Capt. Mathison, G.C.M., 5th Batt. (A.A.M.C.), Elsternwick, Vic.—Died of wounds), (Saturday, 29 May 1915), p.17.
• Killed in Action: Mathison, (Tuesday, 1 June 1915), p.1.
• Australians Who Have Fallen, (Tuesday, 1 June 1915), p.5.
• Personal Particulars: Captain G. C. M. Mathison, The Argus, (Wednesday 2 June 1915), p.12.
• Personal: Tribute to Late Dr. Mathison, The Argus, (19 May 1917), p.18.
• E.H.S., "Obituary: Gordon Clunes McKay (sic) Mathison, M.D., B.S.Melb., D.Sc.Lond", The British Medical Journal, No. 2842, (19 June 1915), pp.1070-1071.
• Obituary: Gordon Clunes McKay Mathison, MBBS 1906, MD 1911 1884-1915, Chiron; Journal of the University of Melbourne Medical Society, Vol.2, No.5, (1992), p. 16.
• Webber, H., Years May Pass On... Caulfield Grammar School, 1881–1981, Centenary Committee, Caulfield Grammar School, (East St Kilda), 1981. ISBN 0-9594242-0-2
• Brothers, Ann (2002), "Wherever I am Wanted: A Dedicated Life — Gordon Clunes McKay Mathison", Chiron; Journal of the University of Melbourne Medical Society, Vol.4, No.5, (June 2002), pp. 52-53.
• McMullin, Ross (2015), "Clunes Mathison: Destiny Denied", pp. 48-54 in Jaqueline Healy (ed.), Compassion and Courage: Australian Doctors and Dentists in the Great War, Carlton, Victoria: Medical History Museum, University of Melbourne. ISBN 978-0-7340-5103-5

• Australian War Memorial: World War I Nominal Roll: Captain Gordon Clunes Mathison
• Australian War Memorial: Red Cross Wounded and Missing Records: Gordon Clunes Mathison
• Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour - Gordon Clunes Mackay Mathison.
• World War I Service Record: Gordon Clunes Mackay Mathison
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission casualty Details: Mathison, Gordon Munco Mackay (sic).
• The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
• Melbourne Medical School: 150 Years of Medicine: Gordon Mathison killed at Gallipoli.^{[permanent dead link‍]}