View source for Ċensu Tabone

{{Infobox president| name=Vincent Tabone
|order=4th [[President of Malta|President of the Republic of Malta]]
|image=
|term_start=4 April 1989
|term_end=4 April 1994
|predecessor=[[Paul Xuereb]] (Ad Interim); [[Agatha Barbara]]
|successor=[[Ugo Mifsud Bonnici]]
|birth_date={{Birth date and age|1913|3|30|df=y}}
|birth_place=[[Victoria, Malta|Victoria]], [[Gozo]]
|spouse=Maria Wirth
|party=[[Nationalist Party (Malta)|Nationalist Party]]
|languages spoken=[[Maltese language|Maltese]], English, Italian
}}
'''Vincent "Ċensu" Tabone''' ({{IPA-mt|tʃɛnsuː|}}; born 30 March 1913 in [[Victoria, Malta|Victoria]], [[Gozo]]) is a [[Malta|Maltese]] [[Politician|political figure]]. He was the [[President of Malta#List of presidents|fourth President of Malta]].

==Early years==

Dr. Tabone is the son of Niccolò and Elisa Tabone. He was the youngest of ten children. His paternal grandmother, Giuseppina De Gaetani, had settled in [[Valletta]], Malta in the mid-19th century from [[Riposto]], [[Sicily]]. His father Niccolò was one of the first Maltese doctors to read pathology and surgery in the United Kingdom, and served as a District Medical Officer in various parts of Gozo. Life on Gozo for the Tabone family was relatively quiet, and pastoral. They lived in [[Victoria, Malta|Victoria]] and summered at a ''villeġġatura'' in [[Marsalforn]]. Tabone's childhood was deeply affected by the sudden death of his father in October 1922, at the age of 59. Two years later, at the age of 11, he was shipped off to Malta, where he became a boarder at St. Aloysius College, a [[Jesuit]] school. He entered the [[University of Malta]] in 1930, where he graduated as a [[pharmacist]] in 1933 and as a [[Doctor of Medicine]] in 1937.

==Military service and medical career==

During [[World War II]] Tabone served as a Regimental Medical Officer and general duty officer with the [[Armed Forces of Malta|Royal Malta Artillery]], and later as trainee ophthalmic specialist stationed at the Military Hospital, [[Mtarfa]]. In the early days of the War, he narrowly escaped with his life when a bomb fell in St.Elmo fort and demolished a substantial part of the army barracks in which he was posted. In 1946, he obtained a diploma in [[Ophthalmology]] from the [[University of Oxford]], followed by a diploma in Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery from the [[Royal College of Surgeons of England]]. He was a clinical assistant at [[Moorfields Eye Hospital]] in London.<ref name="Savona-Ventura">[http://staff.um.edu.mt/csav1/history/ophthalmology.pdf Ophthalmology in Malta, C. Savona-Ventura, University of Malta, 2003]</ref>

In 1948, Tabone was entrusted with the supervision of a campaign to treat [[trachoma]] using [[sulfonamide (medicine)|sulfonamide]] tablets and drops.<ref name="Savona-Ventura"/>  Through his efforts, the disease was virtually eliminated from the Island of [[Gozo]]. He helped launch similar campaigns in [[Taiwan]], [[Indonesia]] and [[Iraq]] under the auspices of the [[World Health Organization]], and subsequently served as a member and consultant of the WHO's International Panel of Trachoma Experts.

He served on the Council of the [[University of Malta]], and between 1957 and 1960 he was a faculty member of the Board of Medicine, and a lecturer in Clinical Ophthalmology in the Department of Surgery. He helped found the Medical Association of Malta in 1954 and is at present its Honorary President.<ref>[http://www.mam.org.mt/council.htm Medical Association of Malta]</ref>

For many years, even as he served as a Member of Parliament, Tabone maintained his medical practice in [[Sliema]].

==Political career==

Dr. Tabone was nominated to the [[Partit Nazzjonalista|Nationalist Party]] Executive Committee in 1961, served as the party's Secretary General from 1962 to 1972, and as Deputy Leader from 24 June 1972 to 9 January 1977. He was first elected to Parliament in 1966, and subsequently served as a Member of Parliament for the [[Sliema]], [[St. Julian's]], [[Msida]], and [[Gzira]] areas for 23 years. During his long political career, he also served as the Minister of Labour, Employment and Welfare between 1966 and 1971, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1987 and 1989. As Minister of Labour, Employment and Welfare, Tabone was responsible for the emigration portfolio, at a time when emigration from [[Malta]] to the [[Dominion|Dominions of the British Empire]] and to the United States was at an all time high.

In 1968, Tabone brought a motion before the [[United Nations]] calling for an action plan in regard to the World's ageing population. In 1988, he brought a further motion before the U.N., calling for the World's climate to be declared the common heritage of mankind.

==Trivia==

*Dr. Tabone's great-grandfather is reputed to have been the [[Mayor]] of [[Riposto]], [[Sicily]], prior to the upheaval cause by the [[Italian unification|Risorgimento]].
*It is said that Dr. Tabone's grandparents, the De Gaetani, never quite mastered the local language, and accordingly they spoke a form of Siculo-Maltese ''patois''.<ref>[[Henry Frendo]], ''Ċensu Tabone: A Man and His Century'', (2001) Malta: Maltese Studies, 2nd ed., p. 19.</ref>
*Dr. Tabone's childhood home on Strada Corso (now Republic Street), Victoria, now houses the La Stella Band Club.
*In 1887, Dr. Tabone's father, Niccolò, had sought a position as a Colonial Assistant Surgeon on the island of [[St. Lucia]] or another West Indian colony, but the colonial government of the day turned down his application, on the grounds that it would be too difficult to find a replacement for him on Gozo.<ref>Frendo, ''supra'' at p. 20.</ref>
*He treated the first wounded soldiers after the first air raid of WW 2 when he was stationed at [[Fort St. Elmo]]
*Upon appointment to the Cabinet for the first time in 1966, in the [[Partit Nazzjonalista|Nationalist Party]] Government of [[Giorgio Borg Olivier|Dr. George Borg Olivier]], Dr. Tabone took his oath of office under the first name ''"Ċensu"'', thus institutionalizing the use of the name under which he was known from childhood, although in [[Gozo]], the island of his birth, he is known as ''"Ċensinu"''. Nonetheless, he has always been listed as "Vincent Tabone" in Malta phone directories.
*Hollywood Legend [[Joseph Calleia]] was Tabone's first cousin.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

{{S-start}}
{{Succession box| before=[[Paul Xuereb]]<br>(acting)  | title=[[President of Malta]]  | years= 1989&ndash;1994 | after=[[Ugo Mifsud Bonnici]] }}
{{S-end}}
{{MaltesePresidents}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2010}}

{{Persondata <!-- Metadata: see [[Wikipedia:Persondata]]. -->
| NAME              =Tabone, Censu
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
| SHORT DESCRIPTION =
| DATE OF BIRTH     =30 March 1913
| PLACE OF BIRTH    =[[Victoria, Malta|Victoria]], [[Gozo]]
| DATE OF DEATH     =
| PLACE OF DEATH    =
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tabone, Censu}}
[[Category:1913 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Ophthalmologists]]
[[Category:Presidents of Malta]]
[[Category:People from Gozo]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany]]

[[da:Ċensu Tabone]]
[[de:Ċensu Tabone]]
[[fr:Censu Tabone]]
[[it:Ċensu Tabone]]
[[ka:ჩენსუ ტაბონე]]
[[mt:Ċensu Tabone]]
[[pl:Ċensu Tabone]]
[[fi:Ċensu Tabone]]
[[sv:Ċensu Tabone]]
[[Category:2Fix]]