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[Page 4]
[Transcriber's notes:
Henry Ernest Gissing was born in Sydney in 1888, the son of Frederick and Sarah Gissing. He spent ten years in Melbourne, returning to Sydney in 1898. He attended public school then completed his education at Newington College. He assisted his father in his building business, then commenced to study pharmacy in his spare time and passed the Preliminary Examination on April 15, 1910. He became apprenticed to S.W. Gayfer of Summer Hill for three years and in the second year attended lectures at Sydney University. He attended all lectures but sat only for Chemistry in which he gained a distinction. The following year he passed in Botany and Materi Medica, and the Final Examination in July 1913. He then worked for J. Parker, Pharmacist, of William Street, Sydney.
He lived with his parents at 99 Elizabeth Street Ashfield until enlisting in the A.I.F. in December 1914. (The above courtesy of the Chemist and Druggist of Australasia vol xxix, No 2 Feb 1914)
He went on a trip to England in 1913 and returned to Australia the following year and enlisted on 14 December 1914.
He joined the 1st Field Ambulance (Reinforcement 2) unit (later the 14th) and following a period in Egypt, was on active service on the Western Front for the remainder of the war, rising to the rank of Warrant Officer Class 2. He was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal in 1918 and returned to Australia in March 1919
During that year he went to Wagga to relieve a local pharmacist and after the death of the owner during the flu epidemic, later purchased the business. There are still two branches of Gissings Pharmacy in Wagga.
He married Ethel Booty at Wagga in 1920. They had three sons and a daughter. She died in 1961.
He died on 23rd February 1953 aged 65.
The extensive reports in the Wagga Daily Advertiser on 24 February following his death, showed how widely "Harry Gissing" was respected in the community.
He was first elected to the Wagga City Council in 1920 and was an Alderman until 1923, the again from 1934 until his death. He was Mayor from 1937 to 1944 and from 1949 to 1951.
In addition to these duties, he was involved in innumerable local and district organisations in which he invariably played a leading role and left a lasting legacy.
One of his sons, M. H. Gissing is resident in the town and was himself Mayor for periods between 1971 and 1985
His grandson, Peter Gissing (also a pharmacist and owner of the two pharmacies in Wagga) is (among other activities) Past Chairman of the Charles Sturt Pharmacy Foundation; Fellow of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia and Fellow of the Australian College of Pharmacy Practice and Management, etc.]
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