| Father: | Robert (Bert) Willson Heath | |
|---|---|---|
| Mother: | Zöe Colvin Ferris Elliott | |
| Born: | 18/10/1893 | 3am Dudley St Geelong |
| Died: | 5/7/1970 | ashes sprinkled in the Port Phillip Heads by son Peter |
| Married: | 14/04/1927 | Eileen Wynne Kirk St Georges Pres Geelong |
| Children: | 16/06/1928 | John Robert Heath |
| 16/12/1932 | Peter Wallace Heath | |
| 28/11/1937 | Michael Maxwell Heath |
John Samuel Robert Heath (Sam) was born in 1893 in Geelong. He was an amazing character, at once artist, sportsman, philosopher, dentist and epicurean.
He was a keen swimmer who loved the surf and pioneered board surfing in Australia in 1911 (three years before the Hawaiians are supposed to have introduced the sport here), surfing at Torquay on a 14' pine plank.
Having been raised a Christian, he had his doubts already before departing to the Great War (to which other Plymouth Brethren refused to go due to their pacifism). Accordingly he joined the Medical Corps, and saw service in Egypt, Gallipoli and France, being mentioned in dispatches for bravery and awarded the 1914/15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Cross. He returned to Australia after studying dentistry at Royal Dental Hospital in Leicester Square, London, and swam for London University winning a "blue".
He was the first private individual to own an X-ray machine in Australia, and it assisted him in bring the dental establishment into a more scientific era.
He was a free thinker and a Freemason, and read Santayana and Nietsche before either were widely known in the West. Fiercely iconoclastic, he bought a church building in the thirties and converted it into a home and studio.
He was a member of Max Meldrum's "tonal school" of painting and produced many works, mainly portraits and still lifes, of which some are hung but most are in private collections.
