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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Dorset => Topic started by: Geordie daughter on Thursday 06 February 20 15:38 GMT (UK)
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Does anyone know anything at all about this man? His full names were John Alexander Ramsay Oswald and he trained as a doctor in Scotland. He resigned from his post at the Perth Royal Infirmary in 1924, just before his marriage, and he and his wife relocated to Kinson, Bournemouth. Their first child was born at Tuckton Lodge nearby in 1927, but I am struggling to find out anything at all about him or his professional career from this point on. He died in the early 1930s but his wife remained in Bournemouth.
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Have you looked on Scotlands People for a birth/marriage entry - both of which will give you his age, parents names and mothers maiden name.
www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
Marriage was 1924 to Atholl Isobel Murray. He is just shown as John Alexander Oswald. Second child born Bournemouth 1930
There is a birth for those names in 1894 on SP and a marriage also on SP in 1893 between a James H Oswald and Mary Grace Ramsay who may possibly be his parents
His death is on freebmd in 1933 Marylebone. www.freebmd.org.uk and there is a probate entry here
https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/Calendar#calendar
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Hi Carole
I've got his family (yes, those are his parents) and details of the wife and children, etc, but he completely disappears from view once the family moved to Bournemouth. I have discovered there was a Rural Hospital and also a convalescent home for consumptives at Kinson, but absolutely nothing at all has come up when I tried to find out whether he was a doctor in either of those institutions, or had a practice as a G.P. in the area.
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The fact that he died in Marylebone & not Bournemouth may be significant as may be the 2 addresses shown on the probate. He may have been working in a London hospital.
For £1.50 you can download a copy. You may want to consider buying a pdf copy of his death cert although they don't always yield much info
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I think in the end your suggestion may be the way to go. I also wondered if perhaps he was working in London, or alternatively, that he had had a nervous breakdown or suffered ill-health of some sort as a result of his war service, and was himself hospitalised. Annoyingly, the probate search link gave me an error message, so I couldn't check the details.
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Here's the link to the opening page of the probate site which should be ok
https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/#wills
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it worked perfectly, thank you, Carole! There definitely seems to be something going on as the first address on the entry is that of his father, who was a minister in the Scots Presbyterian Church, and not his own home address. I will see if I can find out anything more about "9 Mandeville Place."
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Try this for starters - not very informative though
https://www.mandeville.co.uk/%7Bnewseventtreefurl%7D/street-stories--the-history-of-mandeville-place/111-38/
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Great minds think alike! I've gleaned, from various sources, that Mandeville Place was a fairly popular place of residence for members of the medical profession - there are four doctors living in properties in Mandeville Place, in 1883 alone. It's not surprising given that there are umpteen hospitals, Harley Street, and the Royal Society of Medicine within easy reach of it.
Even more interestingly, though, I found reference to a nursing home at 7 Mandeville Place which was known as Birkett Hospital (after the lady whose home it was) by 1917, at which time it was being used for convalescing military personnel. It may have reverted to an ordinary nursing home once more, after the war, because there are at least five newspaper reports of inquests on patients who had died "at a nursing home in Mandeville Place," between 1923 and 1935. I hasten to add that they mostly died as a result of injuries they had sustained elsewhere, not bad nursing care!!! (I get the impression that the nursing home was a fairly discreet one as the house number is never mentioned in the papers.) No. 9 Mandeville Place was occupied, from at least 1923 to 1937, by a Miss Jessie Lyon Gordon, daughter of the late William Gordon of Aberdeen, so there's a Scots connection too.
Some of the possibilities that spring to mind are that John was the doctor attached to the nursing home or some other medical institution nearby and either lodging with Miss Gordon, or visiting her at the time of his death. Time to order the death certificate, I think!
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Just stumbled across this "Jessie Lyon Gordon, now a co-partner in a nursing home at 9 Mandeville Place, London."
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Excellent find. He was only 37 when he died so it will be interesting to find his cause of death. Did he serve in WW1 as I can't find a Medal Roll entry for him.
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There is a report of Dr J A Ramsay OSWALD of Kinson involved in a motor accident in 1931 at Ferndown. Doesn't sound like anyone was hurt, but £31 damages were awarded.
Western Gazette , Friday, Feb. 6, 1931
And another report of the doctor attending a coach accident at Ferndown
Western Gazette, Friday, July 18, 1930
So still in the area in 1931.
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Jessie Lyon Gordon of 9 Mandeville Place died 24.6.1937 aged 68 as per probate entry and freebmd
Scotlands People shows she was b 1869 Old Machar Aberdeen Burgh
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Carole: it does look very much as if he was a patient at the nursing home, not a member of staff, and it will be very interesting indeed to see the cause of death. T.B., or a hereditary heart condition maybe? (At least two of his paternal uncles died relatively young - i.e. in their late 60s - and both were doctors themselves.) I found Jessie's obituary as well as some other snippets about her, and it seems she had some very illustrious clients come through the doors of her nursing home, including Lord Northcliffe the newspaper magnate, who left her money in his will. Sir Victor Horsley, an eminent neurosurgeon, saw a fair few of his private patients there.
Yes, your guess was right: J.A.R. was a Second-Lieutenant in the King's Own Scottish Borderers during WWI.
Maddy, that's brilliant! I think we can infer from what you've found, that he was working locally until some time in early 1931, at least. It's frustrating that I haven't been able to dig up any P.O. directories for the area, as they might indicate whether he was working as a G.P. or at one of the local medical institutions.
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It sounds as though 9 Mandeville Place was like an exclusive nursing home for the rich and titled.
I suspect his illness occurred between 1931 and 1933 and whatever that illness was - 9 Mandeville Place was the best place for him to end his days. Roll on the arrival of his death cert!!
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Money clearly wasn't an issue if he could afford to spend his last days there! His father and aunts and uncles were the children of a Colliery manager, but the males all ended up with very successful careers (2 doctors, a minister and a brewery owner), and at least one of the females married well. One of J.A.R.'s female cousins also became a doctor in the 1920s, and seems to have continued her career even after her marriage to a Navy Surgeon!