Vale Neil Bishop: A legacy of community care
Neil Bishop passed away in November 2025, leaving a legacy of care. The Guild gives special thanks to Pam Bishop for sharing her remembrances and photos (below).
Vale Neil Philip Bishop
24/11/1933 – 17/11/2025
Neil belonged to what has been called the “Traditionalists” or Silent Generation (1928–1945). They valued security, loyalty, respect for authority and hard work. His childhood included both the Great Depression and World War II.
Neil always wanted to be a pharmacist and a missionary. He left school after Junior (now Year 10) and worked as a message boy for a year before being apprenticed to Fredrick David of 265 George Street, Brisbane (David Pharmacy under the old Lennons Hotel).
He studied at the Central Technical College (now QUT) in the mornings, worked in the pharmacy in the afternoons and on Saturday mornings, and all through the holidays. Annual leave was two weeks a year.
Neil qualified with a Diploma as a Pharmaceutical Chemist at age 20 in 1954. He was immediately called up for three months National Service training at Wacol Army Base. He then managed the same George Street store and handled the buying for the seven David Pharmacies in Brisbane city for another five years.
Neil opened his own pharmacy, “Bishops”, on the corner of Chestnut Street and Bay Terrace, Wynnum, in a new medical centre in 1962. He was 28.
He became a Pharmacy Guild member in 1962. The same year he purchased 20 shares at 20 shillings each at Queensland Druggists Limited, which was the wholesaler at that time.
In those early days it was common to be called out over the weekend or late at night to dispense urgent medicines, often asthma sprays. He remembered a customer rang one Sunday morning wanting a packet of band-aids. Later the local pharmacists formed a group and opened the Wynnum After Hours Pharmacy. This stayed in operation till extended hours were introduced.
Neil was the old style “Compounding Chemist”, dispensing mixtures, lotions, creams, ointments, ear and eye drops, suppositories and baby teething powders. When he was an apprentice he made iron pills from the raw ingredients -mixing, rolling, cutting and rounding the pills, then polishing them. He loved dispensing!
In the early days bottles arrived in crates, often with cork stoppers, from Dodd’s Bottle Works. Later they were purchased from QDL. Customers would return empty bottles and these were washed and reused. Recycling began a long time ago!
Neil had some special mixtures, creams and ointments that he had labelled. “Bishops Pharmacy Bronchitis Mixture” was a favourite. “Bishops Drawing & Healing Ointment” was a great buy for Stradbroke Island fishermen, especially if they were pricked by fish fins or fishhooks.
As Neil loved singing, he always played music through speakers in the shop. He especially enjoyed playing Christmas carols all of December and often sang along with them.
Neil built a good relationship with his loyal customers as he was a people person and had a caring nature. Community pharmacy was often the first port of call if someone was sick. Then, if the chemist couldn’t help, they would be referred to the doctor. Customers trusted their pharmacists, who remained high in public opinion.
Neil married Pam (also a pharmacist) in 1967 and together they ran Bishops Pharmacy until selling and retiring in 2000 (a few months before GST commenced). He would cheekily tell people that “Pam was the brains and he was the nice guy!” During his 40 years the shop relocated twice when the doctor’s surgery moved.
In 1960 UQ began the Bachelor of Pharmacy degree. Neil supported the growth of pharmacy by employing a pre‑registration fourth‑year student every year. He loved mentoring them and later allowed his chief pharmacist to take on this role. He also encouraged his pharmacists to go to the Guild training courses, as well as going himself.
When Queensland Health asked if any pharmacy would participate in the Methadone Program, Neil was the first in the district to put up his hand. He wanted to help people in whatever way he could.
Neil was a keen Guild member, following the Retail Price Guidelines that were issued monthly. This made pricing very easy but was limited in that it discouraged competition. Retail price maintenance came to an end with the election of the Whitlam Government in 1972.
The Guild helped pharmacy by marketing Chemist Only products, Gilseal trademarks, Guild merchandising guidelines, the Guild Christmas Catalogue. The Guild and Parke Davis also had a national radio program.
Another Guild initiative was tax cards, and a tax card stand - each customer was offered a tax card to record their medicinal items which were tax deductible on the yearly tax return.
The Guild negotiated with the Government on many occasions regarding script pricing and dispensing fees.
In November 1989, 13 local pharmacists banded together to protest. They advertised in the local Wynnum Herald and encouraged people to contact local and federal members as the Hawke Government intended reducing prescription funding by 23%. The ad said, “This will cause 35% of Australia’s pharmacies to close and will affect every person in Australia.”
Supermarkets wanted permission to set up a pharmacy within each of their stores. This was defeated as Senator Ron Boswell fought hard for small business and managed to keep pharmacists as the sole owners of pharmacies.
Although a little nervous about technology advances, Neil was keen to keep up with the trends. He sent his pharmacist to look at three different systems, choosing NEC hardware in a big box, along with a monitor and three printers. Software was DDH (Data Design Hsoft).
Eventually all pharmacies were forced to use computers as the Government would only pay on receipt of a monthly floppy disk of all scripts dispensed. Later the FRED (Fully Reliable Electronic Dispensing) system was introduced and the scripts were forwarded electronically.
Another Queensland Guild initiative in the 1990s was the College of Nutritional Pharmacy, which ran a postgraduate course in Nutritional Pharmacy. Both Neil and Pam studied this course and were awarded the Advanced Diploma of Nutritional Pharmacy in 1996.
Neil became a member of the Complementary Medicine Association (Inc). As botany was a subject when Neil was studying pharmacy back in the early ’50s, he was particularly interested in herbs. Preventative health care was Neil’s motto.
The Wynnum Herald Business Achievers Awards was an annual event in the area. In 1999 Bishops Healthsense Pharmacy was inducted into the Hall of Fame after winning the Health Category for the third year in a row. Neil thanked his committed staff and the clear focus to endorse natural medicine at the awards dinner.
And yes, Neil did become a missionary when he joined a team to PNG in the 1970s, and then took many short trips to Indonesia over the next 30 years. We rang a pastor friend in Indonesia and he sang to Neil half an hour before he peacefully stopped breathing and went to his Heavenly home.
At Neil’s life celebration last month many of his staff, chemists, pre‑registration students and shop girls turned up to farewell him. What an honour.
What a journey!
- from handwritten prescriptions in Latin to computer‑generated scripts
- from handwriting prescriptions in the big script book (drug name, price and script number) to a computer that recorded all the details
- from handwriting labels that transitioned to typewriters to computers that just spat the labels out for you
- from pounds, shillings and pence to dollars and cents
- from grains, drams and ounces (Apothecaries System) to milligrams, grams and kilograms (Metric System)
Neil was very proud of his large collection of pharmacy antiques and memorabilia and often gave talks to local groups on “Pharmacy before the ’80s” during his retirement.