Australian Dictionary of Biography

John Derek Llewellyn-Jones (1923–1997), obstetrician, gynaecologist, and author, was born on 29 April 1923, at Wallasey, Cheshire, England, only child of John Glyn Llewellyn-Jones, a Welsh general practitioner, and his Irish wife Olive, née Baile, also a doctor. Raised at Hawarden in north Wales, Derek attended the local Miss Parry’s private school, then Arnold House School, and The King’s School, Chester. Following matriculation, he undertook a course in biology at the College of Technology, Liverpool, before proceeding to the University of Dublin, his mother’s alma mater. There he graduated in medicine (MB, BCh, 1945) and undertook postgraduate studies in obstetrics (Master of Obstetric Art, 1948). He also edited the Trinity College Dublin student newspaper, TCD—a College Miscellany, and performed with the Dublin University Dramatic Society (The Players).

On graduation, Llewellyn-Jones gained a brief appointment as house physician at Monsall Hospital for Infectious Diseases, Manchester, followed by employment at the City Hospital, Plymouth, from September 1945, and at The Women’s Hospital, Liverpool, in April 1946. He was conscripted into the Royal Army Medical Corps in April 1947. Attracted by the financial benefits and the promise of appointment as a regular officer, he took a short service commission that extended his period in the RAMC from two to three years. Initially based in England, in 1949 he was posted to Malaya Command in Kuala Lumpur during the Malayan Emergency.

Llewellyn-Jones returned to England in 1950 at the end of his military service, working at Hope Hospital, Salford. During 1951 he formed a relationship with Elisabeth (Lis) Wilma Burton Hoggar (formerly Pemberton, née Kirkby), an actor. He then attained a position in obstetrics and gynaecology in a private practice in Singapore, arriving in August 1951. Elisabeth, accompanied by her young son from a brief second marriage, joined Llewellyn-Jones in December. A daughter and son soon completed the family.

At the end of his contract with the private practice, Llewellyn-Jones joined the colonial medical service, accepting in 1953 an appointment as senior consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, Maternity Hospital, Kuala Lumpur, Federation of Malaya (Malaysia from 1963). During a period of extended leave in England, Derek and Elisabeth married at the Register Office, Henley, on 22 February 1956. He also used his time there to complete a thesis for an MD and for membership of the Royal College of Surgeons. Returning to Malaya, often ‘working 16 hours a day and spending too little time with his own family’ (Forster 1987, 3), he was closely involved in the building of a new maternity hospital, advised the department of obstetrics at the University of Malaya, and gave medical talks on Radio Malaya. Elected a fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in 1963, in the following year he was appointed OBE.

With their elder son already boarding at Geelong Grammar School, the family relocated to Australia in April 1965 where Llewellyn-Jones had an appointment as associate professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Sydney, based at the Women’s Hospital, Crown Street, as honorary obstetrician and gynaecologist. Finding himself bored with only about three hours of work to do each day, and with limited experience in, and opportunity for, clinical research, he revived the idea of publishing a medical textbook, first raised with him by the London publishing house Faber and Faber during his time in Malaysia. The result, the two-volume Fundamentals of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (1969 and 1970), became a leading textbook in the field, with an eleventh edition appearing in 2022.

Llewellyn-Jones’s work at the University of Sydney came to emphasise the social dimensions of health and medicine. He gained a reputation as a ‘theatrical’ lecturer prepared to introduce students to ‘a new outlook on various topics’ (Godden 2016, 320). Fame arrived with his authorship of Everywoman: A Gynaecological Guide for Life (1971). Welcomed by reviewers for its clarity of presentation, frankness, and detail about women’s bodies and sexuality, Everywoman was in tune with the greater openness of the sexual revolution and the stress on women’s empowerment in contemporary feminism. He explained that it was aimed at the woman who was ‘intelligent, interested in her femininity, and adult in her attitudes’ (Llewellyn-Jones 1971, 13), yet felt unheard by domineering doctors. Everywoman was a spectacular international publishing success that had nine editions, was translated into fifteen languages by the late 1980s, and sold over two million copies. It quickly became an essential inclusion on the bookshelves of thousands of Australian women, and a target for surreptitious browsing by their children curious about sex.

Everywoman also launched Llewellyn-Jones’s career as a popular author, public intellectual and national celebrity. His popular success, gifts as a communicator, and distinguished appearance as a tall, handsome, and well-dressed man ensured a heavy demand for his services in the media. He supported causes such as the Whitlam government’s Medibank scheme, liberalisation of abortion law, better sex education, and anti-uranium mining, and was a persistent critic of what he saw as the traditional authoritarian relationship between doctors and patients, especially women.

Llewellyn-Jones’s material success, and that of Elisabeth as an actor in the popular television soap opera Number 96, enabled their purchase of a 160-acre (65 ha) property at Martinsville in the Watagan Mountains north of Sydney, on which they built a log farmhouse. They maintained a residence in Sydney, moving from a home at Vaucluse to a flat at Lane Cove as their children became adults. Llewelyn-Jones also commenced lecturing weekly in the new medical school at the University of Newcastle.

As a consultant on World Health Organization missions to India (1969), Thailand (1970), and Indonesia (1971), Llewelyn-Jones and his colleagues examined the teaching in medical schools of family planning and reproduction. He was president of Zero Population Growth Australia, and president of the Family Planning Association of New South Wales (1980–87), being honoured with life membership in 1990. The chairman, and then president, of the Australian Federation of Family Planning Associations (1982–87), he also became its patron. He was a prominent advocate of easy access to reliable contraception.

A steady stream of books continued, exploring a wide array of topics including birth control and the population debate, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV-AIDS, nutrition and eating disorders, women’s health, breastfeeding, menopause, sexuality, and infertility. Everyman (1981) and Everygirl (1986), the latter written with Suzanne Abraham, associate professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Sydney, most directly sought to replicate the success of Everywoman. In 1985 Llewellyn-Jones was appointed chairman of the Better Health Commission, a Federal government initiative to identify major health problems and their causes, and recommend preventive strategies. It yielded a three-volume report, Looking Forward to Better Health (1986).

After divorce from Elisabeth, who served in the New South Wales Legislative Council for the Australian Democrats (1981–98), Llewellyn-Jones married Abraham on 24 January 1988 at their beach house at Manly. He retired from his academic post that year, having also returned to the University of Sydney as a postgraduate student (MM, 1988). Several of his later works were written in collaboration with Abraham and he remained prominent in the media. In 1992 he appeared on the weekly television health program Live It Up, as its medical expert. That year he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Your Prostate: An Owner’s Manual (1997) reflected that ordeal as well as his growing concern for men’s health. After developing secondary bone cancer, he died in St Luke’s Hospital, Sydney, on 28 November 1997. He was cremated, his ashes interred with his parents in St. Meugan’s Churchyard, Llanrhydd, Ruthin, Denbridgshire, Wales. From his first marriage he was survived by Elisabeth, his stepson Anthony (Tony), and their children, Deborah and Robert; and from his second marriage by Suzanne and their son, Glyn.