Dr Oswald of "Nithsdale," Kinson

[Geordie daughter]

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.

[CaroleW]

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

[Geordie daughter]

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.

[CaroleW]

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

[Geordie daughter]

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.

[CaroleW]

Here's the link to the opening page of the probate site which should be ok

https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/#wills

[Geordie daughter]

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."

[CaroleW]

Try this for starters - not very informative though

https://www.mandeville.co.uk/%7Bnewseventtreefurl%7D/street-stories--the-history-of-mandeville-place/111-38/

[Geordie daughter]

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!