Haynes Gibbes Alleyne

Haynes Gibbes Alleyne (born Saint James, Barbados 14 October 1813, died Sydney, 9 September 1882) was a physician and zoologist who practised in Australia and who is well known for his studies on the fishes of Australia.

Alleyne was born on 14 October 1813 in Saint James on Barbados, his father was John Gay Alleyne, a plantation owner, and his mother was Johanna Bishop, a granddaughter of General Fitzroy Maclean.

Alleyne is known to have studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh but he left there for New South Wales, arriving in April 1839. He seems to have taken part in a cattle farming venture with a cousin but this failed and after he was declared insolvent in 1844 he then left Australia. He was originally headed for the Marquesas but changed his mind and disembarked in New Zealand where he took up a military commission and fought in the Hone Heke War. In this conflict he distinguished himself for both gallantry and medical skill. He returned to Edinburgh where he completed his medical degree in 1846.

After this he returned to Australia, where he was registered as a medical practitioner in Sydney on 3 July 1848. In May 1848 he was appointed coroner in Liverpool, New South Wales and in 1852 he became the health officer for Port Jackson. In 1852 it was noted that Alleyne had used chloroform at the Sydney Infirmary in a successful amputation of the left leg of a girl with "strumous disease". He also played an important part in the suppression of outbreaks of smallpox in Port Jackson in 1876 and 1881.

Alleyne died, without marrying, on 9 September 1882 at the age of 68, having had an "apopleptic fit" while preparing to go out. In the area of East Chatswood in Sydney there is a street, Alleyne Street, named after him.