Malky and Gadget
I know an awful lot about Dr Charles Bankhead (and his namesake son the diplomat) including the fact (pertinent to recent events) that he was a sex pest - described as having wandering hands in the memoires of notorious courtesan Harriett Wilson (which also refer to him being very big in stature and strong). Following Castlereagh's suicide, another researcher (who was intending to write a book on Castlereagh) states that Dr Bankhead was blamed by some for not preventing it and that his society practice suffered badly as a result. Apparently in the Castlereagh papers there is a letter from him asking Lady C for money as he is "reduced to beggary". In the end he moved to Italy to stay with his son the diplomat and once again practice as a society doctor. He is buried in Florence. He had at least two brothers who were MD, John (who practiced and died in Ulster) and Joseph who had an interesting career, abandoning his wife and children in Belfast and ending up in W Indies where he died. Another two brothers, James and William, were ministers. The latter is buried in Dean Cemetery Edinburgh, a mile from where I live. The patriarch of the family was Rev John Bankhead of Ballycarry, Co Antrim, who appears in the very first edition of the DNB (but only because the author of the same knew him personally). Courtship letters of 1840 from Charles's sibling Agnes (who married yet another minister) survive.
Anyways, the doctors in Annan and Chester are, I feel certain, connected to this family but in the absence of any local source documents other than the two newspaper reports there remains no proof as to their identity. I live in hope etc
Matt