This year's Anzac Day commemorations will look a little different due to coronavirus – but one former soldier would have approved of the level four lockdown.

Robert Makgill, a decorated lieutenant colonel in World War I, was the equivalent of director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield during the deadly 1918 influenza epidemic.

Heritage New Zealand uncovered Makgill's story during a recent heritage inventory of war memorials, the organisation's director of regional services Pam Bain said.

Supplied Robert Makgill was the Dr Ashley Bloomfield of his day.

​Makgill was best known for making the highly unpopular decision to close bars, breweries, and wine and spirits merchants in Wellington during the flu epidemic, which struck in the closing weeks of the war.

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"Key health officers had fallen ill, and Makgill was forced to step up, becoming largely responsible for managing the later stage of the epidemic in the Wellington district," Bain, a Gisborne resident, said.

"It's hard to overstate the impact the flu epidemic had on the country. About 18,000 New Zealand soldiers had died during the four years of World War I.

"The flu epidemic, however, killed 8600 people – just under half the number of war dead – in less than two months.

Supplied Heritage New Zealand director regional services, Pam Bain, says Robert Makgill's professional reputation grew in New Zealand for his careful testing and quarantine methods.

"The Epidemic Commission was established to address the public's demand for answers. It fell to Makgill to appear before the commission because the Chief Health Officer, Dr Thomas Valentine, was overseas."

Makgill's report on the 1918 influenza epidemic was a model of careful statistical investigation, as he was already known for careful testing and quarantine methods, Bain said.

He argued for a new public health act to consolidate and simplify existing legislation, becoming the chief architect of the 1920 Public Health Act.

Supplied Robert Makgill was a lieutenant colonel in World War I and became known for closing bars in Wellington during the 1918 influenza epidemic.

"He did a brilliant job, with one commentator saying that it was widely recognised as a model piece of health legislation; 'said to be the best of its kind in the English language'. It was also regarded as 'the most useful legacy of the 1918 influenza pandemic'."

Makgill was botn in Stirling, Scotland, to a prominent captain.

He attended the small country school at Kariotahi, near Auckland's Waiuku, then went on to attend Auckland College and Grammar School.

He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with first class honours in 1893, then moved back to Auckland where he became resident surgeon at Auckland Hospital from 1894-96 and honorary bacteriologist in 1897.

After a stint in the army as a surgeon during the South African Boer War, Makgill worked as a district health officer, successfully reporting on a case of bubonic plague in Auckland in 1902.

"Makgill's professional reputation grew, and in 1914 he investigated a typhoid epidemic, narrowing the source of the infection to a temporary army camp on One Tree Hill through his careful testing and quarantine methods," Bain said.

GETTY IMAGES Director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has been fronting the media about coronavirus, in much the same way Robert Makgill had to front an Epidemic Commission in 1918.

"Ironically, perhaps, one of Makgill's nieces was one of the reported cases."

With the outbreak of World War I, Makgill was attached to the Royal Army Medical Corps as a temporary captain.

From 1915-16 he served in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

He was made a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for his war service in Egypt, although he told his family it was for the humble reason of "camel dung and sand", according to the New Zealand Dictionary of Biography.

Makgill had noticed the sand in the camel lines, when mixed with camel dung, set hard like concrete. He ordered the mixture be used for road paving, thereby improving transport and communications.

"Of all Makgill's considerable achievements – academic and medical – it seems a little incongruous that the thing he was officially recognised for was this combination of sand and camel dung," Bain said.

"Makgill's medical contribution to New Zealand's war effort during the First World War – and his contribution to the country's health in peace-time – are both significant achievements."