Vic in China

Leslie Gifford Kilborn was born in 1895 in Kiating, West China. He was the eldest child of Drs. Omar and Retta Kilborn. Leslie enrolled at Victoria College in 1913 where he studied Physiology and Microbiology. He graduated in 1917 with First Class Honours and Victoria's Silver Medal in the Sciences. He continued his studies at the University of Toronto, earning a M.A. in Physiology in 1918, an M.D. in 1921, and a Ph.D. in 1928.

In 1921 Leslie Kilborn married Dr. Janet R. McClure, the daughter of pioneer missionaries of the Canadian Presbyterian Mission in North China. Leslie and Janet sailed to West China in the fall of 1921. They spent their first eighteen months  studying Chinese in Penghsien. In 1923 they began their careers with West China Union University.  Leslie taught Physiology and Biochemistry while Janet was charged with overseeing the WCUU eye hospital, as well as teaching pediatric medicine and medical English. Leslie and Janet Kilborn had four children, all of whom were born in China: Robert, Mary, Frances and Jean.

In 1945 Janet Kilborn died. Two years later, Leslie married Jean E. Millar, a W.M.S. doctor with a specialization in anesthesia. 

Leslie Kilborn held a number of administrative roles at West China Union University. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine from 1936 - 1947, and Director of the College of Medicine of Medicine and Dentistry from 1939 - 1950. Throughout these years Dr. Kilborn was active in medical research, publishing scientific articles and monographs, and serving on the editorial boards of medical journals.

Leslie and Jean Kilborn lived under the Communist government from December 1949 - March 1952. During the years of the Sino-Japanese War they were extremely busy in helping to arrange for the accommodation of several universities and colleges, their staff and students who sought refuge in the buildings and grounds of West China Union University. In 1952 the Kilborns went to Hong Kong where they took up academic appointments at the University of Hong Kong. 

Victoria College conferred a Doctorate of Sacred Letters (D.Lit S.) on Leslie Kilborn in  April1965. 

Leslie Kilborn died on June 23,1967. His brother-in-law, Lewis Walmsley wrote an appreciation of Leslie for the Canadian Medical Journal's August 1967 issue.

...I have known Leslie Kilborn for more than 40 years.
   I think of him first as a very gentle, kindly man--a man with a quietness of spirit motivated by that inner authority which makes men free.
   I think of him as a man of sound integrity with a remarkable dedication to God and to what he chose to be his particular mission in life--medical education. He lived his religion often with little overt verbal expression, but his sermons, his public addresses left little doubt as to what he believed and what he stood for.

Sources:

Leslie G. Kilborn. Awareness : Address to Weekly Assembly Chung Chi College Chapel, February 15, 1963. Hong Kong: Chung Chi College Staff Club, 1963.

Leslie G. Kilborn. Our Last Mission in China, 1949-1952. Toronto: The Board of Overseas Missions, 1952.

The Kilborns in China : Seventy-Two Years of Service 1891-1963. [Canada: s.n.], 1967.

"Obituaries," CMAJ• JAMC, 1967, 97:9, 490 - 91

Leslie G. Kilborn, "Curriculum Vitae Leslie Gifford Kilborn." Victoria University President's Office Papers, 89-130V, 76-1