James’s Education:
Reefton District Primary And High School
Nelson College - (scholarship)
Otago University - graduated 18 July1924 - graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine & Surgery
Post graduate study in England -1950-1
Career:
Seacliffe Mental Home, Dunedin
Farlie Hospital
1926 - Avondale Hospital , Auckland
1927-57 - Reefton, partnership with Dr Conlon, (private practice). Served wider community for more than 3 decades.Attended men at Inangahua Junction after 1929 earthquake. (Murchison)
Superintendent Inanghua Hospital and Waiuta Hospital
Delivered over 2,000 babies
Family:Charlotte Elizabeth , (Betty)
Margaret Estelle
Henry William, (Harry)
Jessie Lewis
Retired:
1957 from Reefton, to Hokitika for 2 years
Moved to Christchurch and died there on August 8, 1964.
Buried in Reefton
Hobbies :Racing; (a familiar face at race meetings on the West Coast. Dr Wicken owned or part-owned several trotting horses.)
Playing poker
Swimming
Piano playing
James Lewis Wicken (Dr)
Dr. James Wicken of Reefton doing home visits on his horse
Dr. James Lewis Wicken at Reefton Racecourse
Cecil Bennett, Dr. James Wicken, Wilbert Reeve and Mary Reeve, at a West Coast Racecourse, 1948.
Comment
Valerie Beavis
I was born in Reefton in 1943,and my three sisters, and mum even had quads born there also,Dr Wicken was the Dr in those days. The quads were unexpected, babies just kept coming out, born to early but all alive and weight 2lbs plus but no incubators back then, and they all died,
Description
Reeftonites outside Stanley Austins Blacksmith and Wheelwright shop on Broadway, ca 1940s.
From L to R - Jim Eager, J. Pettigrew, Smiley, Dr. Lewis Wicken, Ned "Rowdy" Warren, "Pompey? (well known trucker from Waiuta Mine), "Boggerin" William Ellis, Jack Coghlan, (of Sheil St, Mrs Reeves house).
Darrell Latham Photo Collection
Dr. James Lewis Wickens home, surgery and waiting rooms, Mace St, Reefton, 1935.
Rosalie & Bert Waghorn Photo Collection
Interior of the Dining Room of the Palace Restaurant, Broadway, Reefton
From left, Martha Prince, Henry Wicken and unknown.
Dr Wickens house being moved to Dick St, Reefton from where the new school was to be built.
Blacks Point Museum Photo Collection