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Earle Fead Northcroft (1896 – 1962) was a New Zealand botanist and physician who was a member of the 1924 Chatham Islands expedition scientific team.
Northcroft was born in 1896 in Christchurch the only son of Ernest Northcroft.[1][2] His cousin was the lawyer and judge Sir Erima Northcroft.[1][2]
During WWI Northcroft served in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force receiving the British War Medal.[3] His occupation at enlistment was law clerk.[3] After the war he attended the University of Otago attaining an M.Sc. in 1924 with a thesis entitled An Ecological Study of the New Zealand Plants at Lawyers Head.[2][4][5] He then lectured in biology at Otago before gaining a Ph.D. at Victoria University College in Wellington in 1931.[2][4]
Northcroft was a member of the Otago Institute and one of two botanists who made up the scientific team on the 1924 Chatham Islands expedition.[4] His findings were unpublished until his records were discovered and published posthumously by A.J. Healy in 1975.[4] He recorded 53 species that had not been recorded by later researchers but no specimens exist.[6] Between 1923 and 1929 he worked on the biology of the blackberry publishing five papers and wool fibres publishing one paper.[4]
Northcroft then changed careers studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh where he graduated with an MB,ChB. in 1934.[2][4] After qualifying he worked in the Royal Infirmary, Royal Hospital for Sick Children and City Fever Hospital in Edinburgh and in Hounslow Hospital in England.[2]
In the late 1930s he left the United Kingdom for Australia joining the medical branch of the Royal Australian Air Force during WWII.[2] He ran an RAAF hospital in Sydney.[2][4] In August 1947 he was appointed to the rank of Squadron Leader as a part-time physician specialist.[7]
In 1949 he returned to Dunedin where he became a general practitioner and instructor at the Otago medical school.[1][2]
Northcroft was a supporter of the arts belonging to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Association and serving on the committee of the Otago Arts Society.[2]
His wife Brenda Guthrie Northcroft wrote several books including a biography of her husband Another beloved physician.[1][2][8]
He died in Dunedin on 2 June 1962.[2]
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