With files from Dr. Allan Marble, PhD, ONS, Chair, Medical History Society of Nova Scotia

February is  African Heritage Month in Nova Scotia. It’s a time to honour the culture, achievements and enduring legacy of African Nova Scotian communities. This year, the theme is “Legacy in Action: Celebrating Black Brilliance.” Among other things, it celebrates collective achievements, the dynamics of change and the importance of reflecting on history while striving for progress.

This month, we’re highlighting the career of Dr. Alfred Ernest Waddell, one of Nova Scotia’s first Black physicians.

Born in Trinidad in 1896, Alfred Ernest Waddell wanted to be a medical doctor in Trinidad. He applied to Dalhousie Medical School because he needed a medical degree from a Commonwealth university. Dalhousie University had accepted West Indian students since 1910 and at least two, Drs. Grant Mahibar (MD, 1917), and George Morrison (MD, 1921), had already received their degrees.

Waddell enrolled in the medical program at Dalhousie in 1928, graduating with his MD in 1933. The only major problem he encountered at Dalhousie was finding a hospital placement for his internship. The attitudes of hospital administrators at the time meant he had difficulty finding an internship until his classmates and several faculty members intervened, finding him an intern position at the Infectious Disease Hospital in Halifax.

Dr. Waddell set up a practice on Cornwallis Street in north-end Halifax, however, the Black community initially treated him as an outsider. Most of his early patients were from the city’s Chinese community. As time went on, his practice grew, and he did house calls, providing medical attendance to residents of Preston, Africville, Hammonds Plains and Beechville.

It wasn’t long before Dr. Waddell became a well-known medical practitioner and civil rights worker in Halifax, becoming active in several humanitarian causes. He provided support to Ethiopia when it was invaded by Italy in December 1935, and provided medical care to the infants and children in the Home of the Guardian Angel on Tower Road. In 1946 he provided medical attendance to Viola Desmond, who had been injured during her arrest in New Glasgow.

In 1949, Dr. Waddell established a newspaper called the Negro Citizen, which was the only newspaper providing information about the lives of the Black community in Halifax. Waddell also wrote articles for the Clarion, a newspaper published in New Glasgow by Carrie Best. He billeted Black visitors to Halifax, including jazz singer and bandleader Cab Calloway, who was unable to find a hotel in Halifax because of his colour.

Dr. Waddell died in Halifax in 1953, but his legacy lives on: his grandson, Dr. Ron Milne, is a family physician in Halifax and his great-granddaughter, Dr. Andrea Milne, is a physician in Windsor, Ont.

The Halifax Regional Municipality recently honoured Dr. Waddell by naming a street in the new Cogswell District after him. Learn about the current work taking place to help boost health care access for Black Nova Scotians.

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