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Publications | Down Survey | 2001 Issue Contents Dr
Alexander Leslie Gracey - Victorian Doctor It is all too easy to acquire a stereotype of most people in the nineteenth century and earlier living and dying in the same county or even townland. The Cromie medical practise in Clough is an instance of this kind of situation where one family looked after the village and district for about a century. However, this is far from true when we look at the careers of individual doctors of the period, including that of DR Alexander Leslie Gracey. Some years ago, when an old family house at Ballyhosset was being cleared out, Down County Museum received a gift from Sir John and Lady Anderson of various items relating to the doctor and his family in the locality. The material included a prayer book with lengthy biographical notes,1 a case of medical prize medals, a box of surgical instruments, and a dog collar.2 There was clearly scope for further research and this was started by Lesley Simpson, who passed the file on to the present author for further work on the medical aspects. The Gracey family settled in the townland of Ballyhosset, near Ardglass in the early seventeenth century.3 We first hear of Launcelot Gracie, a lieutenant in the army of King James I, who acquired lands in Lecale. His son Robert Grace or Gracey (1644-1718) had various leases of land in the area, followed by his son Robert (c 1700-1782) and grandson Alexander (c 1747-1828). Our interest is with Alexander's second son, James Gracey (born 1791 ), who has left us notes of his life and the early progress of his son in the fascinating prayer book mentioned above.
James Gracey went as a boarder to the Rev James Neilson's Academy in Downpatrick,1 a famous and successful school, though Neilson's liberal views were later to split his presbyterian congregation.4 James was there 1801-4 and then in Belfast 1804-8 before he was apprenticed to Richard Keown, attorney, of Downpatrick from 1808 to 1814. In the latter year he started a solicitor's practice with William Beckett at his house in English Street (where Denvir's Hotel now is), and continued successfully on his own after Beckett died in 1824. James Gracey himself retired in 1835. He was then only 44, but had an attack of apoplexy in 1829 and may have felt sufficiently well off to give up working as a full-time solicitor. We have no details of the remainder of James's life but he appears to have settled in the neighbourhood of Berwick-upon-Tweed and when he died was buried in Holy Island (Lindisfarne), ten miles down the Northumbrian coast.5 James had married on 9 July 1823, in Monkstown Church, Dublin, Mary Leslie,1 daughter of the Rev William Leslie of Drogheda (who had already died) and sister of the Rev Henry Leslie of Kilclief.6 Indeed, it was presumably while staying with her brother that Alexander and Mary met in the first place. She had various Dublin relations and it would have been natural at that time to go to the capital for expert medical help, so it is not surprising that their only son Alexander Leslie Gracey was born at 26 Molesworth Street, Dublin, on 30 August 1824. Alexander was baptised in St Anne's Church of Ireland church, Dublin, on 27 September and presumably then went home with his father to Downpatrick. Sadly, medical expertise was inadequate for Mary in her next labour and we read that 'after pain and struggling' she died during the birth of her second child (a girl who died also) on 28 May 1826. She was buried in a family grave in Santry churchyard and a tablet to her memory was placed in the church.7 We next hear of Alexander at the age of 13,1 when he was sent for education to board with the Rev John Hassun in Swords. At a time when public transport was much too slow to take children to school on a daily basis, most children of the better off would have boarded, either in a school or with a clergyman who took in a small number of boys to supplement his income. In 1839 he was with the Rev John Homan at Woodford House, Santry, and as well as general education, had lectures from a surgeon there. While there he won two silver medals for diligence which he later mounted in a case with his university medals. Certainly he would have been well placed to enter Trinity College, Dublin, where he was enrolled on 1 July 1840 as a Fellow Commoner.8 These students paid double fees compared with the ordinary 'pensioner', in return for a faster course through the university, and presumably mixed with the nobility, but it cannot really have benefited Alexander much, as he did not take an early degree there. He studied both classics and science and obtained honours in the internal exams in 1841.1 He stayed on at Trinity until 1844 but at this stage he appears to have developed some chronic illness and went with his father to various places in France and Spain, as well as Torquay in Devon. Fortunately, he seems to have recovered for on 17 October 1851 he was able to set sail from Ireland for Edinburgh to study medicine there.
Edinburgh was particularly popular with the Presbyterians of the north of Ireland, but it had long been regarded as one of the great medical schools of the Kingdom, whereas the Trinity medical school was only slowly recovering from the apathy of the eighteenth century.9 Whatever was the reason for the choice, Alexander had a successful time there, winning four gold and three silver medals in the course of his studies. The medals included two for midwifery (1852 and 1854) and three for surgery, including military surgery (1853 and 1854), as well as one for an essay on Infanticide (1853) and Professor Simpson's prize Silver Medal for notes on Chloroform (1854). It must be remembered that the first anaesthetics in England and Scotland were only given in late 1846, and that was with ether. Although it revolutionized surgery, there were many practical problems, and it was Professor Simpson's use of chloroform in 1847 that gave the world a rapid and smooth method of producing anaesthesia. In spite of its dangers to heart and liver, it remained a widely used anaesthetic until after the Second World War. Alexander must have been proud of his Edinburgh medals, for he had a special case made for their display and this has probably ensured their survival as an intact set. The Museum also has a set of Alexander Gracey's surgical instruments inscribed 'University of Edinburgh, Class of Military Surgery, 1852-53',2 which one likes to think he bought in Edinburgh in preparation for a period of military surgery. It contains the horrendous instruments for amputation (saw, large knives, ligature needles, bone nibblers and tourniquet), rendered all the more poignant by the thought that they were still routinely used without anaesthesia. At the end of his three and a half years in Edinburgh he took the Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in April 1855 and was a qualified doctor - or more precisely had a basic qualification in surgery, since it was possible to separate medicine and surgery at that time. His degree in medicine had to wait for several more years. The Crimean War had started in the autumn of 1854 and by the next spring the despatches of the Times correspondent William Russell, showed clearly the need for surgeons and the hopeless inadequacy of the medical services.10 Alexander must have applied to go out even before obtaining his LRCS for he records that on 21 April 1855 he received confirmation of his posting as surgeon in the Turkish Contingent and sailed for Turkey on 29 May.1 On arrival in June at a camp near Constantinople he was appointed Medicine Purveyor to the force of about 10,000 men, then surgeon to the Land Transport Corps (1 August) and surgeon to the Sth regiment (29 August), and on 25 September surgeon to a mixed force of Artillery with 13 English commissioned medical officers under his command, though he was never a commissioned officer in the British Army Medical Service.11 The above is his own description and is, perhaps, an indication that there was no real structured medical service at that tirne). On 25 September they sailed from the port of Buyuk, near Constantinople, to a base in the Kertch area of the Crimea, east of the main fighting. By this time the early victories at Alma and Inkerman were long past and the British and French armies were bringing to a close the long and costly siege of Sebastopol. Alexander succeeded staff surgeon Wolseley in the hospital ship William with 208 patients and noted a very low mortalilty, but overall the war eventually cost some 25,000 lives, more than half of them due to starvation, cold and disease. The whole Crimean war may now appear a disaster but, after nearly 50 years of peace since Waterloo, the British public supported it strongly. Even if it did not achieve much politically, it had one long-term benefit in that the publicity given to Florence Nightingale's reports ensured a reform in medical care within the army. Incidentally, Alexander Gracey was the first of a number of Ulster surgeons who went off to the wars to break the monotony and gain experience, other notable figures being James Nelson, who went as a medical student to fight with Garibaldi in the liberation of Italy (1860),4 and William MacCormac who went as a trained surgeon to work with the American Red Cross in the Franco-Prussian War (1870). Alexander's hospital ship was closed down in April 1856 and the disbanded contingent returned home via Constantinople, Naples, Marseilles and Paris in July.1 He records that he presided over a Medical Service Dinner in Edinburgh on 5 December 1856. He received two Turkish war medals inscribed 'Crimea 1855' which are in Down County Museum (DCM1985-47) along with two tunic buttons inscribed 'Turkish Contingent' and 'VR' (DCM1995-148). He also notes that he received for his services a gratuity of £218 and altogether was able to invest £800 in shares in the Midland Railway.1 In August 1857 he received the degree of MD from Edinburgh University, presenting a thesis on 'Infanticide',12 and in the summer of 1858 received the BA and MA of Trinity College, Dublin.8 We know much less about Alexander's subsequent career. He soon went into general practice as surgeon and physician in Tynemouth, Northumberland (living in Tynemouth Castle),13 and later moved to Berwick-uponTweed. As has been said, he never had a regular commission as an officer in the Army Medical Service but he maintained a part time involvement, and in his last years was surgeon to the 3rd Brigade, Northern Division of the Royal Artillery. In his will he actually asks that there should be no military procession or other military proceedings at his funeral.5 In his later months he developed chronic Bright's Disease or kidney failure and, having made his will on 21 November 1885, he died on 29 January 1886 at Verandah Terrace, 20 Church Street, Berwick-upon-Tweed.14 His cousin Alexander Gracey of Ballyhosset was present at his death and was executor of his will, which was proved at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 16 March 1886, his estate being valued at £3,494. His first request in his will is that he should be buried with his father in the grave on Holy Island 'according to the ceremonial of the Roman Catholic Church', to which he had presumably converted. A heavy stone was to be laid level with the ground, with the names and dates of birth and death of his father and himself, and asking that the grave should be never thereafter opened. His will is the kind of rambling document which gives us quite a full picture of this 61-year old, military bachelor. Among his possessions he refers to two portraits of his father which are to go to his cousins, one to Alexander of Ballyhosset, and the other to Joseph, John and Mary Anne Gracey of The Grange, Grangewalls. The latter cousins are also to have a large chest with a hunt depicted on the under surface of the lid, and £1 to cover the cost of its conveyance to the Grange. Most importantly they are to have 'my favourite old dog 'Vaton', which dog I direct whoever of my said cousins may continue to reside at the Grange', to maintain in peace and comfort during its life and I entreat them to be kind and loving to my said dog as they have arranged with and promised me, and I further direct that the sum of five pounds be expended to pay the cost of comfortably conveying my said dog from wherever it may be at the time of my decease to the Grange." His furniture was to go partly to a friend called Deleval Knight Gregson of Berwick, and partly to the priests of the Roman Catholic Mission Church in Berwick. Another friend, James Kirsopp of Hexham, Captain in the Third Brigade of the Northern Division of the Royal Artillery, was to receive all his cigars and the silver cigar case given to him by Colonel Reid. Henry, Best, also of the third Brigade, was to have the silver headed cane given to him by Major Thurlow. Eliza Straughan of Cornhill-on-Tweed was to have two oval gilt mirrors, and the rest of the furniture, linen, etc was to go to his housekeeper and her brother. His various Railway stocks were left between the two sets of unmarried cousins at Ballyhosset and The Grange. Then comes his most curious bequest: 'I direct that any Goat that I may die possessed of shall be given as a free gift to whom my executor may think likely to be kind and good to her and if no such person shall be found then such goat shall be painlessly killed by poison.' All the remainder of his personal possessions (pictures, chests, boxes, portmanteaus, etc) were to go to his executor to be taken to Ballyhossett and not sold. Indeed, when his executor had dealt with all this, we may well feel that he had worked hard for these not very practical rewards! Altogether we have a picture of a complicated and full life, a man born in Dublin, who grew up in Downpatrick, was educated in Dublin and Edinburgh, who saw the Crimean War in all its horrors, came back to Edinburgh and Dublin, but settled for the rest of his life in the north of England. He kept up his military connections and, most importantly, kept up his links with the cousins in Lecale. He never married but must have been really fond of his dog and was certainly compassionate towards his goat - all this at a time when he would have been suffering from the then untreatable kidney failure. Finally, he had changed his religious faith and was presumably quite involved with the priests in the Catholic Mission in Berwick, since he bequeathed much of his furniture to them. Someday a visit to his grave on the remote Holy Island (Lindisfarne) will complete the picture, even if it will probably not add greatly to our knowledge of this distinguished doctor of the Victorian Age. Richard Clarke is Emeritus Professor of Anaesthetics at Queens University, Belfast, Honorary Archivist of the Royal Victoria Hospital and the author of many volumes recording gravestone inscriptions, particularly relating to County Down.
Notes and References
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