Charles Mackie Begg

Charles Mackie Begg (13 September 1879 – 2 February 1919) was a New Zealand medical doctor and surgeon who served in the First World War as a medical administrator with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.

Early life Born in Dunedin, New Zealand, on 13 September 1879, Charles Begg was one of nine children of an accountant and his wife. He went to Kaikorai School and then Otago Boys' High School. In 1898, he began medical school at the University of Otago before going onto University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery in 1903. Two years later he earned a Doctor of Medicine degree.

In 1906, Begg returned to New Zealand. Now a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, he took up residence in Wellington and joined a medical practice there. Later that year he enlisted in the New Zealand militia, known as the Volunteer Force, and was commissioned as a surgeon captain in the New Zealand Medical Corps. By 1909, he was commander of No. 5 Field Ambulance. and attained the senior medical position in the NZEF in December 1918 when he was appointed its director of medical services. Now based in London, he was only eight weeks into his tenure before becoming ill with acute pneumonia. He died at Twickenham on 2 February 1918 and was buried in Walton-on-Thames. He was survived by his wife and two children, who had joined him in England before his death.