Dr. C. E. R. Gardiner, Medical Officer of Dungloe, 1901 - 1937.

[Shanachai]

I'm anxious to hear from any elderly residents of Dungloe, Co Donegal, who might recall anything about a certain Dr Gardiner, who was Medical Officer for the town from around 1901 to 1937.  He would have been well known to their parents and grandparents.  Assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Irish Press, 14th October 1937.

Dr. C. E. R. Gardiner Retires.

Dr. C. E. R. Gardiner’s resignation from the position of medical officer of Dungloe, a correspondent writes, has officially terminated an honourable service and association of over 35 years with the Rosses of West Donegal. 

In his 45 years in the profession, Dr. Gardiner has had varied and trying experiences in battles against disease at home and abroad.  After taking his degrees in 1888, Dr. Gardiner volunteered for service in Central Africa and was appointed state surgeon to the Congo Free State, at that time the private property of the King of Beigium.

Of fourteen others who went with Dr. Gardiner to the Congo there were only five survivors at the end of three years.  On completion of his service Dr. Gardiner was awarded the Congo Star, and personally decorated by the Belgian King.

Fight Against Plague.

Following his return to his native Dublin, Dr. Gardiner was brought in contact with the Rosses, in 1901.  Outbreaks of typhus and typhoid fever in West Donegal had resulted in the deaths of Drs. O’Doherty and Sullivan.  The only medical man remaining in West Donegal was Dr. Smyth of Burtonport, whose single-handed fight against the plague constitutes one of the most glorious pages in the history of the profession.

Dr. Gardiner accepted the appointment, which many had refused, as medical officer in the Rosses.  His first duty was to attend on Dr. Smyth, who had, by then, contracted the fatal disease.

A second outbreak of fever took place soon afterwards, and another in 1916.

Such outbreaks are now almost unknown.  Much of the credit is due to pioneers like Dr. Gardiner.

During those years Dr. Gardiner gave wholehearted support to anything which tended to benefit the Rosses, particularly the town of his adoption, Dungloe.  The same may be said of Mrs. Gardiner and the members of the family, one of whom is now medical officer at Ballintra; another, the Rev. J. G. Gardiner, O.P., Dublin, while others hold important positions elsewhere.

Dr. Sullivan (Jun.), Mountcharles, is acting as medical officer in Dungloe since the resignation of Dr Gardiner.

[myluck!]

FYI
1901 Census

1911 Census

Civil record of Marriage to Catherine O'Connor

Civil Records of eldest three children born in Wicklow

Civil records of nine children born in Donegal

#13 Ada Frances b. 1914

Eileen died aged 11 month on Jun 10 1906
Josephine died aged 19 on Dec 01 1918

Civil Records of marriages of two daughters in the 1930s
and a son in 1927
Children of these couples may still be alive

records online are:
Rosaleen's children
Sheila's child
Charles' children

Dr. Gardiner died in 1953 - LINK

[dathai]

May have died in Rathdown in 1953 age 87
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01hia/

slightly illegible headstone in Deansgrange cemetery
plot 258
http://www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/ire/dublin/photos/tombstones/1headstones/deansgrange-st-pats02.txt

[Shanachai]

Thank you for the input - I actually have much of the information you've been so kind to provide.  It's another kind of information I'm seeking - the kind that tends not to make it into official records: anecdotal information about the Doctor as a man and a practitioner either from the people he dealt with or their descendants (if they were fortunate enough to survive his intervention, that it).  It's a long shot, I know - but I thought I'd try anyway.

Thanks again.

[myluck!]

You're welcome!
Living family may have been a start!

You could

contact the local papers (Donegal News or Donegal Daily) either for old articles or to ask

contact the current doctor

contact nursing homes in the area

contact churches etc

If not already done so. 😉

[Shanachai]

I'm conducting private research for a book I hope to complete by the end of the year.  Dr Gardiner came to my attention when I was researching another matter.  The following newsclippings speak for themselves.

The Wicklow Newsletter, Saturday, January 28th, 1893.

Editorial.

     An extraordinary rumour having been current in Arklow for the past few days in regard to Dr. Gardiner, the medical officer for the district, we think it right to make some allusion this week to the matter.

     The story referred to is nothing more or less than that he actually poisoned a man who recently died in Abbey Street, named John Doyle.  In order to procure some information on the subject, our representative called last Thursday on the dispensary officer, and when he explained what he had heard, the doctor gravely remarked that it was a mere trifle.  During the past week or two he had been made aware of some very nefarious chapters in his career, compared with which poisoning a man was of very little significance.  The atrocities he had perpetrated amongst the blacks in Africa, he had been informed, were frightful, and the natives of the Dark Continent were, even up to the present, crying to Heaven for vengeance.  As he contemplated the monster before him, our reporter was considering abruptly terminating the interview and flying through the door, but the doctor remained so apparently harmless that he was inclined to believe he would ultimately escape without anything terrible befalling him.  And so he stayed, transfixed by what he was hearing.  ‘’Do you know,’’ said the doctor, ‘’that I have killed scores of niggers?’’ 
‘’I find that difficult to believe.’’ 
Afraid of aggravating Dr. Gardiner, our reporter said no more. 

     Remarkably, it transpires that Dr. Gardiner was unaware of his wickedness or the sanguinary transactions he had engaged in until he arrived in Arklow.  It remained for some of the far-seeing people in this enlightened district to discover his evils – evils of which he claimed to have been entirely ignorant.  Now that his past has caught up with him, it’s hard to say what he will be charged with next.

[Shanachai]

What Dr Gardiner was charged with next.  Part 1.

The Wicklow Newsletter, Saturday, December 1st, 1900.

Dr. Gardiner’s Conduct.

The Local Government Board’s Report on Dr. Gardiner.

His Dismissal Called For.

No Intercession.

At the Rathdrum Board of Guardian’s meeting on Monday, Mr Patrick Short, presiding, the following report from the Local Government Board re the recent local inquiry on charges preferred against Dr C E R Gardiner, Medical Dispensary Doctor at Arklow, was read.

Date: 22nd November – Sir, the Local Government Board desire to inform the Board of Guardians that they have received the report of their Inspector, Dr Edgar Flynn, on the inquiry held by him into certain charges of neglect of duty preferred against Dr Gardiner, Medical Officer of the Arklow Dispensary District.  The points investigated at the inquiry were: (1) The complaint preferred against Dr Gardiner by a man named Philip Kehoe; (2) The conduct of Dr Gardiner in connection with certain red tickets procured by the constabulary authorities requiring his attendance on tramps and others. 

As regards the first point the facts appeared as follows: - On the morning of the 16th July last, Philip Kehoe, whose children were ill, procured a visiting ticket from Mr Daniel Condren, Chairman of the Board of Guardians, and presented it to Dr Gardiner between 6 and 7 o’clock a.m., at his residence which is one-and-a-half miles from Kehoe’s house.  Dr Gardiner attended at a quarter to eight o’clock a.m., and saw the children.  He considered they were very ill and formed the opinion that they were suffering from enteritis, consequent on eating unripe fruit.  The temperature, he states, was in the case of the first child 100 degrees, and slightly under 100 degrees in the second, while the third child, judging from the pulse, was not feverish. Dr Gardiner states that he directed Kehoe to send to the Dispensary for medicine between 10 and 12 o’clock – if possible at 10 o’clock – as he was going away by the 12 o’clock train.  On this point there is a conflict of testimony, as Philip Kehoe swears that the Doctor did not say what time, and his mother also states that she did not hear any special hour mentioned.  Mrs Kehoe arrived at the Dispensary about 12 o’clock, but Dr Gardiner had then gone.  He states ‘’I waited at the Dispensary until the last moment for the train.’’  He did not, however, make up medicine before he left.  He states that the medicine would only take two minutes to compound, and that he was waiting until the messenger would come, and that he did not leave the medicine at the Dispensary as he did not think the caretaker was capable of understanding his directions.  Philip Kehoe on returning from his work in the evening, finding that the children were no better and that they had not got the medicine, again called on the Medical Officer’s residence, but Dr Gardiner was not at home.  Kehoe, however, found him at the Club, and asked him to come and see the children as a rash had come out on them since the morning.  Dr Gardiner inquired if he had got the medicine, and on Kehoe’s replying in the negative, Dr Gardiner informed him that he would not go again to see them until he had given his medicine a fair trial.  [At this point the reading was momentarily interrupted by a cynical remark from one of the Guardians.] 

The medicine, it appears, was made up by Dr Gardiner on his return from Rathdrum and left in his study, but he left no word with his servant to give it to Kehoe if he called.  This, he states, was an oversight.  [Laughter from the gallery.]  The children became worse during the night and on the following morning (17th July) Kehoe again came to Dr Gardiner’s house, and requested the servant to ask the Doctor to visit his children.  Dr Gardiner refused.  [Another Guardian expresses his dissatisfaction.]  Kehoe then procured a second ticket and gave it to Dr Gardiner’s servant, but Dr Gardiner did not act on it.  One of the children died the same day.  Kehoe again called on Dr Gardiner’s house but he was out.  The servant was asked to inform the Dr that one of the children was dead, and that another was dying.    Kehoe subsequently met another medical gentleman (Dr Halpin), who returned with him to Dr Gardiner’s house.  Dr Gardiner was then at home, but still refused to visit the cases.  Dr Halpin then attended and prescribed for the children, but one of them died on the following morning (18th July). 

[Shanachai]

What Dr Gardiner was charged with next, Part 2.

As regards the second part of the inquiry, namely, Dr Gardiner’s conduct in connection with certain visiting tickets procured by the constabulary authorities, it appears that in a letter addressed by Dr Gardiner to the Inspector General of Constabulary, on the 24th July last, he complains of the action of the constabulary in procuring three visiting tickets within the preceding fortnight, requiring his attendance on certain persons, two of which, he implies, did not require his assistance, and the third he considered a case in which a ticket should not have been issued .

From the facts elicited at the inquiry, it appears that on the morning of the 10th July last, at 8.30 a.m., it was reported to the constabulary that a girl named Kate Lennon, residing about four miles from Aughrim, had given birth to an illegitimate child during the previous night.  The constabulary visited the place and were shown the dead body of a male infant.  The constable, finding that there was no midwife or other woman available in the district, and believing that the mother required assistance under the circumstances, wired to the Head-constable at Arklow to procure a ticket for the attendance of Dr Gardiner.  This was done, and Dr Gardiner attended at about 10.30 p.m. that night but did not consider that Kate Lennon required his services. 

In the second case the Medical Officer was requested to attend a tramp named Nolan, who had either fallen or jumped into the river at Arklow.  Dr Gardiner, it appears, informed the constabulary that if he did attend the case he would process them for his fee, and in view of this statement his attendance was not pressed.  It appears that the tramp in question was in a serious condition when brought to the barracks.  The Head-constable states that Nolan was unable to speak and in a state of collapse and in urgent need of medical attention. 

As regards the third case in which Dr Gardiner complains of the action of the constabulary authorities in requisitioning his services, it appears that an old man named Charles Doyle had been lying ill on some stray in a forge for some days.  The owner of the forge had on the morning on which the constable’s attention was called to the case, requested Dr Gardiner to attend the man, but had not procured a visiting ticket.  The Doctor had not arrived up to the hour of the constable’s visit (1.20 p.m.).  Doyle then asked the constable to procure a ticket.  This was done, and Dr Gardiner subsequently saw the man and ordered his removal to the Workhouse hospital. 
On reviewing the evidence the Local Government Board observed that Dr Gardiner admits that when he visited the Kehoe children on the 16th July, he formed the opinion that they were very ill, and his subsequent conduct in view of that admission is wholly inexplicable.  It was clearly his duty to have dispensed the requisite medicine at the earliest possible moment after he had visited the cases, and as a consequence of his not doing so, the children were left without any medical remedies during the day of July 16 as well as the following night.  One child died on the 17th, and a second on the day following.  When the father of the children called at the Arklow Club on the evening of the 16th July, Dr Gardiner even then made no effort to provide Kehoe with the medicine, which he states was at the time in his study.  The repeated appeals of Kehoe to Dr Gardiner, even when he had obtained a second ticket, had no effect in inducing him to visit the children, or in awakening him to a sense of his duty. 

As regards the case in which Dr Gardiner complains of the action of the constabulary authorities, the Board are of the opinion that his services were most properly requisitioned, and they consider that even as a matter of humanity, Dr Gardiner should have visited the man Nolan at the earliest possible moment, when requested to do so.  The man was, without doubt, in need of medical relief and was entitled to the services of the Medical Officer. 

Having regard to the evidence given at the inquiry, the Board have come to the conclusion that Dr Gardiner can no longer be permitted as Medical Officer of the Arklow Dispensary District and must request that he may be required to forthwith to send in his resignation, as otherwise the Board will be obliged to issue an order under seal removing him from office.

I am Sir,
your obedient servant,
D. J.  MacSheahan, asst. sec.

[Shanachai]

What Dr Gardiner was charged with next, Part 3.

Mr Richardson – I think Dr Gardiner highly deserves it.
Mr Fogarty said he considered it a great farce to say that the medical officer would not visit the dying children until the father had given the medicine a ‘’fair trial’’ when it turned out no medicine had been dispensed.
Mr Richardson – I would dismiss him.
Chairman – Is anyone in favour of interceding for him?  (Cries of ‘’No!”)
Mr Brennan – The Local Government requests his resignation and that ends it.
Mr Fogarty observed that from the evidence it appeared that the man Kehoe saw Dr Gardiner coming along the street on his bicycle and saluted him.  The Doctor then shouted out that he would not go near the children at all.  He (Mr Fogarty) thought the Doctor was not a humane man.
The Chairman – There is no one in his favour?
A voice – No!
Clerk – I suppose I will call on Dr Gardiner for his resignation?
Chairman – Yes.
Mr Fogarty said it was a deplorable state of affairs to think that a doctor who had recently received a £10 a year increase should place himself in peril of dismissal.
An order was made to the effect that the Board call on Dr Gardiner for his resignation.