Medal mystery solved after 60 years' detective work

Jeanette Waters is ''absolutely delighted'' to have solved a mystery that has haunted her for 60 years, ever since she found a gold medal in an Auckland street as a 5-year-old, in her first week at school.

The year 1953 proved memorable for many things - among them, Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, Sir Edmund Hillary's ascent of Mt Everest, and publication of a scientific paper by Watson and Crick, revealing the double-helix structure of DNA.

And that year Auckland-born Mrs Waters found the medal on a road at One Tree Hill, about a kilometre from her house.

The medal was handed to police, who returned it to Mrs Waters about six months later, after the owner could not be traced.

Mrs Waters (66) carefully kept the gold-plated medal safe over the next six decades, always knowing it was something special, and wanting to return it to its rightful owner.

After many years of fruitlessly trying to trace descendants of the original owner, Dr Harold Chaffer - including once telephoning several New Zealand families with that name - Mrs Waters last year discovered a Dunedin link.

Yesterday, she travelled to the city and gave the medal to the university's Dunedin School of Medicine.

''It's quite a neat looking medal, isn't it?'' she said.

''I'm very happy to see it in a good home here.''

The medal, which bears the name of the then St Mungo's College Medical School, in Glasgow, Scotland, was awarded to a Dr Harold Chaffer, of Yorkshire, for the excellence of his medical studies in anatomy at that school in 1895-96.

He later, apparently, practised in London as an ear, nose and throat surgeon. In 1907, he married, in London, Clementine Edmond, the daughter of former leading Dunedin hardware trader, John Edmond, of Stafford St.

Dr Chaffer's daughter, Christina MacLean Laird, of Auckland, who lived near One Tree Hill, later made a $5000 gift to Otago University, to honour her father's memory. This gift now funds Harold Chaffer Visiting Professorships at the university.

Last year, Mrs Waters discovered the Dunedin link, and the Chaffer Professorships, after inquiries with Scottish medical school authorities. Prof Jean-Claude Theis, of Otago University, has been involved in researching about Dr Chaffer and is also delighted with the outcome. He hopes replicas of the medal will be provided to future Chaffer professors.

- john.gibb@odt.co.nz