The life of William Savory (surgeon), of Brightwalton : with historical notes / by George C. Peachey.

  • Peachey, George Charles, 1862-1935
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The life of William Savory (surgeon), of Brightwalton : with historical notes / by George C. Peachey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Unfortunately the latter is not forthcoming, and William Savory’s after history has to be extracted from other sources. How long he remained at Newbury is doubtful—he had certainly left that town before 1817—hut there are reasons for supposing that he returned to Brightwalton upon the death of his uncle in 1806, his mother having died four years earlier, and that he continued there in practice till his death in 1824, at the age of fifty-six. He left a widow and one son, born in 1793, who, though he does not appear to have “ walked ” the hospitals or taken any diploma, suc- ceeded his father probably by virtue of having been in practice before 1815. His name appears in the “ Medical Directory ” for 1848, hut no qualification is credited to him, and it is noted that he had failed to reply to the editor’s enquiries. He died, according to village tradition, in consequence of a fall from his horse, and was buried with his ancestors at Brightwalton. A talk with some of the older inhabitants will still conjure up memories of “ old Dr. Savory,” of his window bottles, of his bunches of herbs, bought in most instances from the Romany folk who, skilled in simples, still frequent the Down country. The old man made money and invested it in land. He bought two or three farms in the parish and built the house, at a cost, it is said, of .£1,400, in which the present writer resides. At his death he left an only son, AVilliam, who, eschewing the medical profession, commenced farming his own acres, having, by the irony of fate, married the daughter of the then village wheelwright. But lack of application and industry, coupled with extravagant habits, ended in the mortgage and eventual sale of his patrimony, and his only daughter married a small farmer in the neighbourhood, whom in turn the exigencies of the times have reduced to the position of an ordinary agricultural labourer weighed down by the burden of a large family. In 1854, the year in which William Savory, the last medical man of the family, died, a surgeon named Duncan, by tradition “ a ship’s doctor,” commenced practice at Brightwalton. Before 1860 he had left the neighbourhood, and in that year he was succeeded by William James Wood, M.R.C.S., L.S.A., who, after thirty years residence in the village, died and was buried there in 1890. Since then the practice has been in the hands of the present writer, who, in thus recording the medical history of a small country village, ventures to suggest that others of his professional brethren should, with such material as is at their disposal, go and do likewise. [The commonplace-book from which many of the above extracts have been taken is now in the possession of the Rev. H. F. Howard, Rector of Brightwalton, who has kindly placed it at the disposal of the present writer.]