The Family Bible Reveals Clues To A Doctor's Dynasty (9 August 1974)
A factor that made me feel more at home when I first came to Bletchley was the presence here of a number of other Yorkshiremen who were in fairly prominent positions in the town and had been for years. Men like Mr. R.L. Sherwood, who was clerk of the urban council, Mr. E.C. Cook, who was headmaster of the town’s one and only senior school, and Police Inspector William Merry, to name but a few.
Eventually they became so thick on the ground that one of them suggested to me that a Society of Yorkshiremen should be formed. I didn’t much fancy the idea, however.
I thought we could leave that sort of thing to our traditional friendly enemies, the Scots, so that with their fine sense of humour they could continue to con the rest of us about the beauty of the bagpipes in the distance (and the more distant the better), their high-flying haggis, their tartans, kilts and sporrans and the mysteries connected therewith, and their Burrans Nicht longings to be back among their ain folk and a’ that.
As to Yorkshiremen, one of the most respected hereabouts was Dr. William Carter, who for about 22 years practised from the Red House, Fenny Stratford (or Simpson, as it actually was at that time). He retired at the end of 1951 and the practice was then taken over by his son, the present Dr. Frank Carter.
Dr. William, on his retirement, gave me an interview which I look back on with particular pleasure, not only for its intrinsic interest, but also for the fact that it was the only time I ever sat at a doctor’s desk while the doctor himself sat in the patient’s chair. Incidentally, he was not my “own” doctor.
The interview brought to light the remarkable association of the Carter family with the medical profession – a whole dynasty of doctors, in fact.
In the house was a family bible which had a first entry dated 1733 and which contained the names of about 15 surgeons and doctors of medicine.
Hanging on the surgery walls were certificates of the Royal College of Surgeons starting in 1803. Dr. William told me that even before those actual records the family had included barber-surgeons, bone-setters and apothecaries. Somewhere in the family was an old blood-letting chair – with bowl!
The first of the Royal College certificates referred to his great-grandfather, Richard Carter, who was ship’s surgeon on the sloop, Ranger, at the battles of the Nile and Trafalgar. A prized possession in the house was a silver tankard with a whistle built into the handle, which the old ship’s doctor presumably used to blow for more ale. Later Richard set up in practice at Beverley (Yorks) and finally settled in Leeds.
Richard’s son, Joseph Barton Carter, qualified in 1843, practised in Leeds for 50 years and died in 1897. A large oil painting of him hung on the Red House surgery wall. He brought many prominent northerners into the world, including the Hon. F.S. Jackson, of cricketing fame.
Joseph’s son, Francis Richard, qualified in 1873, practised in Leeds (for) more than 10 years and died in 1907.
His son, Dr. William, did not qualify until 1910, but the three year lapse in the direct line was covered by an uncle, Dr. Eustace G. Carter, who practised from 1883.
Dr. William himself began as house surgeon and physician at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, went on to the Leeds Women’s Hospital as senior house surgeon, and then to Somerset as school’s medical inspector to the county council.
He next became a GP near Cambridge and remained there for 14 years. He told me that he began with a one-cylinder car, but its non-electric lighting system prevented much night-driving and he had to cycle for miles in the Fens on night calls.
From there he came to the Red House – of all places. I say “of all places,” because the name of Carter as that of a dynasty of doctors is almost matched by that of the Red House as an abode of doctors. Apart from a short time when it was a solicitor’s office this fine old building – listed for preservation, I believe – had housed doctors for very many years. Among them had been Dr. Camp, Dr. Lacey, Dr. Gent, Dr. Deynes, senior, Dr. Deynes junior (who was born there) and Dr. Nicholson.
It was from Dr. Nicholson that Dr. William took over. He, too, was a Yorkshireman and many can still recall him.
Once, at the Gazette office, we received a letter from a Bletchley man who had long-since emigrated to New Zealand. In the letter he made a passing but startling reference to his children having been brought into the world by “Old Nick.” I blinked. Then it came to me that this “Old Nick” must have been the Dr. Nicholson I had heard about and not the gentleman with horns, fork and tail!
But whatever Dr. Nicholson had done about bringing babies into the world must have been surpassed by his successor. With Dr. Carter to Bletchley came Nurse Curtois. She was nurse, dispenser and secretary as well and had assisted at the births of the doctor’s own children.
They began the Red House nursing home. It was intended to cater only for some of the doctor’s own cases, say about a dozen a year. But that was well before the opening of the Bletchley Maternity Unit. I don’t know where the nearest maternity home was before the war, but for years after the war the only accessible alternatives were the small one at Westbury, Newport Pagnell, and the Barratt at Northampton. The post-war baby boom especially caused the Red House facilities to be much more in demand than had been bargained for originally. Nurse Curtis was the actual owner and she continued there for some time after Dr. William and his wife had retired – to Cambridge.
Dr. Carter was also deputy coroner for North Bucks from 1939 to his retirement and rector’s warden for the parish of Simpson.
“It has all been great fun and I am still very fit,” he told me on parting, “but at the age of 65 and after 41 years’ work during which I have helped to bring more than 3,000 babies into the world, I feel that both my wife and myself would do best to relax…”
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