William Liley


Sir Albert William Liley was a New Zealand medical practitioner, renowned for developing techniques to improve the health of foetuses in utero.

Education and career

Liley graduated from Otago Medical School at the University of Otago in Dunedin, in 1954. After a period at Australian National University in Canberra, he returned to Auckland where he worked for the rest of his life except for a brief period at Columbia University. While in Auckland he held a number of posts, including at Auckland University, National Women's Hospital and the Medical Research Council of New Zealand.
In 1963, after three unsuccessful attempts, Liley successfully carried out the first ever successful intrauterine blood transfusion. The fetus had Rh disease/hemolytic disease and had been expected to die before birth. The highly publicised procedure was a milestone in not only medical treatment but also public perception. Initially the procedure had a success rate of only about 40%, but this rose over time.
Liley was awarded fellowships with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and was appointed to the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of the Sciences, although he was an atheist. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. In the 1967 Queen's Birthday Honours, Liley was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, for valuable services to medicine. In the 1973 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was promoted to Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, for distinguished service to medicine.

Personal life

Liley met his future wife Helen Margaret Irwin Hunt as a classmate in medical school; they married in 1953. They had five biological children and an adopted child with Down syndrome.
The family maintained an block outside Benneydale in the King Country where Liley exercised a passion for silviculture.

Activism

Liley was one of the founders of the New Zealand anti-abortion group, the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, in 1971 and served as that organisation's first president. In 1977, Robert Sassone edited a series of interviews with Liley and Jérôme Lejeune, entitled The Tiniest Humans.

Suicide

Liley committed suicide in 1983.

Liley Medal

Since 2004 the Health Research Council of New Zealand has annually awarded the Liley Medal in recognition of an outstanding contribution to medical research.