[2] After graduation, Duguid worked as a doctor in Glasgow, but in 1911 he signed on as ship's medical officer on a voyage to Australia and home again.
He first worked in the Middle East, treating casualties in the Australian Light Horse, and then on a hospital ship before leaving the service in October 1917.
He also became an active member of local branches of several organisations doing charitable work for ex-servicemen and -women, the Returned Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Imperial League of Australia (RSL), Legacy Australia and Toc H.[2] The family, now with son Charles, moved to Britain for a while for Duguid to undertake further medical studies, but his first wife Irene died on the return journey.
[2] In 1927 he met Phyllis Evelyn Lade, through his connection to her mother, when he was serving as councillor (1922-1934) and she an English teacher at Presbyterian Girls College.
[5][2] In 1944, Phyllis fostered a six-year-old Aboriginal boy, Sydney James Cook, who had been enrolled at King's College, Adelaide.
[8][9] In 1934 he headed to Darwin, but missed his connection from Alice Springs after responding to a request to perform some emergency surgery there and stayed on for three weeks.
He and his wife Phyllis led much of the work to improve the status of Aboriginal people in South Australia during the mid-twentieth century.
[2] Soon afterwards they heard of the British proposal to test guided weapons over South Australia from a base to be built at Woomera in the Central Australian Desert.
Concerned about the impact of the rocket range on the inhabitants of the Central Australian reserves, Duguid criticised the scheme at public meetings in Adelaide and, with Donald Thomson, in Melbourne led the 1947 campaign against the rocket-testing program.
Duguid resigned from the Aborigines Protection Board when it approved the proposal, but as a result of the protests a patrol officer, Walter MacDougall, was appointed at Woomera.
His idea was sparked by his dismay at seeing the poor conditions in which Aboriginal people lived at Point McLeay, a small community south of Adelaide not far from the mouth of the River Murray.
He garnered some support and submitted a petition to Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce, who delegated an investigation by Queensland's Protector of Aboriginals, John William Bleakley.
Bleakley rejected the proposal, supporting instead the establishment of an Aboriginal reserve in Arnhem Land, in the north-eastern corner of the Northern Territory.
Despite a surge of support at a meeting in Adelaide Town Hall after their return from a visit to the mission, resulting in new members, World War II intervened as a higher priority.
People like Lowitja O'Donoghue and other former Colebrook Home residents joined the League in the early 1950s, to fight for entry into professions such as teaching and nursing for the women, and apprenticeships for the men.
O'Donoghue, Grace Lester, Muriel Brumbie, and Faith Coulthard had all applied to train as nurses at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and been turned down.
Duguid was outraged, and this and the need for a hostel to house Aboriginal people in the city drove the public meeting which he arranged in the Adelaide Town Hall on 31 August 1953, which was addressed by five Aboriginal people (George Rankin, Mona Paul, Peter Tilmouth, Ivy Mitchell, and Geoff Barnes)[6] speaking of their personal experiences of discrimination.
In 1998, the AALSA Committee said in the newsletter that the society, dating back to the time of Duguid, had always had a strong commitment to education and human rights for Aboriginal people, and that it would continue in this tradition, focusing on land rights, language maintenance and for recognition and respect for Aboriginal culture as a "vital component of Australian society".
One outcome of the meeting in the Town Hall was the establishment of the Wiltja Hostel in November 1956, at 17 East Avenue in the Adelaide suburb of Millswood.
[24] On 14 February 1958, a three-day conference began in Willard Hall, in Wakefield Street, Adelaide, attended by 12 delegates from nine Aboriginal rights and welfare leagues and 12 observers, hosted by the AALSA.
Different lobby groups focused on different aspects of Aboriginal welfare or rights and members varied in composition, but they all desired to effect change.
It was hard to measure success, but all contributed to changing public opinion to an acceptance that Aboriginal people deserved rights.
[14] Maude Tongerie was a co-founder, and some of the other "Colebrook girls", including Lowitja O'Donoghue and Faith Coulthard, and Ruby Hammond from the Coorong, were actively involved with the Council.
[31] After the disbandment of the APA, the Aboriginal Cultural Centre amalgamated with CAWSA, with Elphick as first president of the ACC, which still continues as Numkuwarrin Yunti of South Australia.