Saving lives in every kind of way -Marlow Heroes no 5&6 the Dunbar- Dicksons

 

This post is dedicated to Marlow heroes John and Emily Dunbar Dickson. 

 John work as the medical officer for both Marlow and the Wycombe rural district council areas saw him hold to account landlords for the frankly inexcusable conditions they were requiring their poorest tenants to live in. He dealt with infectious disease outbreaks, and was one of the doctors of the original Cottage Hospital at Cambridge House. Emily did a lot to help the less fortunate Marlow citizens and lead the fundraising for the new hospital at Glade Rd, clashing with Edward Riley the recreation ground donor in doing so - more of which below.  

John was born in Belfast in 1853 while Emily was Scottish. John arrived here first. He had studied at Queens College and then held various medical positions including that of house surgeon at Royal Bucks Hospital in Aylesbury. He came to Marlow in approximately 1880 to take up a partnership with surgeon John Rawden Hobson. At first John lodged with Sarah Mealing in her lodging house in the High Street. The partnership with Hobson was dissolved in 1885 and John struck out alone. 

John and Emily married at St. Oswalds, Kilmarnock, Renfrewshire on June 2nd 1885. They returned to Marlow and initially settled in West Street before taking up residence in The Gables, Institute Road, in 1893. This would be their home for some 30 years. It was built for them, by builders Loosely of Wycombe, one of the first houses in the new road. 

John meets the German Emperor

Not content with saving lives in a medical setting, John joined the Marlow Volunteer Fire Brigade, initially as a honourary medical officer but he still involved himself in drills and wore a full uniform. This gave him the experience to eventually act as the superintendent of the Marlow brigade for several years. He took on the role in 1890 on a temporary basis originally, with Foreman Batting, after the previous Superintendent Charles Footitt took 6 months leave from active duty due to ill health. Charles was unable to resume his position although he remained a member of the brigade for a while, and so John took the role. (Foreman Batting retired in October 1890) If you are wondering how John could possibly find time to fight fires alongside his work as a doctor, it may help to know that the brigade was not called out very often! He had been in charge for 2 years before his men got called upon to actually fight a fire. (The fire at Captain Marshall's menagerie and home, The Eyrie, 1892) It was not an uneventful period in charge however. In 1891 the Marlow Fire Brigade were amongst a number of crews that were invited to the Crystal Palace in London to put on a "Grand Review" before the German emperor. They were put through their drills and the Marlow gentlemen must have impressed the dignitaries present as John was the the brigade superintendent picked out to meet the Emperor and exchange a few polite words. He stepped down from command but remained as honourary surgeon to the brigade for the first few years of the new century under captains Smith and Page Dye. 

He also had a hands-on life saving role in a different way in 1891 when he leapt into the River Thames and saved the life of a young lad in danger of drowning. The youngster's boat had capsized near Shaw's boathouse and the boy could barely swim. So John threw off coat and hat and plunged in to the rescue in "the most plucky manner possible."

The Dickson's War Effort

During the First World War, the Dickson's eldest son Ian, also a doctor, recieved the Military Cross in the New Years Honours of 1918. He survived the war, and even managed to marry while on a short home leave from fighting near Salonika. (To Nell Parry Price January 1917) Ian had left for the Transvaal in 1912, for a projected stay of 3 years, before war intervened and he joined the RAMC. The Dickson's younger son John was not however so lucky and was killed while serving on HMS Hawke as a midshipman in 1917.  He was aged just 17. 

Emily was a leading member of the First World War War Relief Committee and she was in charge of their Victoria Road depot. This site did two important things. If a woman who had lost her employment because of the war, and could not get any of the limited relief otherwise on offer, she could apply to Emily to be given paid employment at the depot. This was needlework and produced items needed by the Red Cross such as clothing as well as items for hospitals and institutions. 

John meanwhile had retired from his own practice in 1914 (not from his other roles)  but this lasted little time as his successor was absent on war service so he resumed his role for a few more years. 

Shoddy housing and dodgy sanitation

John probably made the biggest difference in his work as the councils Medical Officer and Medical Officer for Schools. These were roles which he filled for a quarter of a century, only giving up a few months before his death. He work with people such as the Sanitary Inspector to hold landlords and householders to account when they had allowed their buildings to degenerate into an unhealthy state. Some of the housing in the region of Dean Street and Marefield, as well as Hayes Place were in a poor condition.  John did inspections and frequently found that the landlords had provided inadequate drainage, poor sanitary arrangements and badly built and leaking cess pits and wells. He recommended what measures needed to be taken to remedy the situation, such as stopping the well and ordering the property owner to supply a decent water supply. In 1910 he discovered how bad the situation had became at Hayes Place. He said the two inadequately sized privvie pitts shared by 5 of the homes there were ancient, and wrongly constructed. He considered them to be a danger to the inhabitants that needed immediate replacement. The cesspool had fallen in and leaked under the scullery floor of one house heavily polluting the soil. The privvies needed to be pulled down and the entire drainage system reconstructed. 

In this role he also inspected Marlow's common lodging houses (aka doss houses) to see if they were abiding by the requirements of various Public Health Acts. The frequent answer was no. One of his most alarming reports was probably relating to the Crown and Cushion in Dean Street. He said there was no screening between the beds of married couples, too few basins, inadequate toilets and that the yard and stables were not cleaned often enough to be in a sanitary condition. 

He was also the school medical officer for the Marlow district and as such sometimes had to order the closure of schools to contain outbreaks of infectious disease. He would visit the homes of those infected and in some cases see that they were disinfected properly. 

Hospital trouble

John was one of the doctors attending the original Cottage Hospital in Cambridge House. He performed operations in the small operating theatre there and treated dozens of people who would otherwise been unable to afford medical care. Emily Dickson was one of the "Lady Visitors" to the hospital who arrived to comfort the patients and do little things for them that did not require nursing practice. She also gave practical gifts of food and bedding to the institution. Emily was heavily involved in raising funds to maintain the hospital and so was a natural chair for the committee dedicated to raising funds for the new cottage hospital which would arrive in Glade Rd. In this role she clashed with former hospital subscriber and current committee member Edward Riley, the man who bought Riley Recreation park for the town. Edward did not want a new hospital to be built in case it would end up "put on the rates" rather than paid for by public donations as before. He also considered the Glade Road site "unsuited for a hospital." While his concerns about funding were shared by some others, and were not without foundation, Edward does not come across as the most easy to deal with individual when others disagreed with him! Emily was present when he complained "too many women" were on the building committee. He wrote letters to the press in response to private letters that Emily wrote to ask for his support in her work. These letters from Edward come across as condescending even if read in the most generous spirit!  John and the other medical staff were moved to write their own public letter threatening a wholesale resignation if progress was not made on providing a better hospital than the inconvenience of Cambridge House could provide. They were they said fully confident that the community would show enough support and "public spirit" to see the building of the new hospital through, despite "unreasonable objections" from those not currently subscribing to the hospital themselves. To read more about this, see the posts here and here. 

A post about Edward Riley is here

The Institute

John was a firm supporter of womens suffrage. He spoke in support of  women getting the vote during a public debate on the issue at the Institute - a motion he had advanced but one that was decisively defeated. He did however secure the rights of woman to join the Institute in their own right and to attend classes there, both the general ones and those intended for ladies in the first place. He himself taught ladies classes on first aid and home nursing at the Institute as well as offering lectures on subjects such as the blood circulation and the workings of the ear and eye to all.

It was John who was credited as the driving force behind securing Technical Education (adult education) classes for Marlow. They would also be held at the Institute for much of their history and John was the treasurer and hon sec for the TE group at various times. You can read more about the Institutes early life here

The Institute building is now the Library. It sits next to the Dickson's former house, which was built for him in the then new Institute Rd in 1893. 

Goodbye John

John resigned from his Council work 2 months before his death in 1923, as he had became suddenly unwell. The Wycombe rural district council deferred accepting his resignation in the hope he would recover. But his condition worsened and he passed away at The Gables in January 1923 age 69. 

The Dunbar Dicksons name crops up constantly in late Victorian and Edwardian Marlow history. It's hard to do justice to all the roles they filled in one post but here is a summary of some (and only some!) roles we have not already mentioned..

John was also:

 a JP sitting at the Marlow petty sessions court adjoining the police station in Trinity Road. 

Member of committee to organise the introduction of old age pensions locally.

Chair of meetings of the Pleasant Sunday Afternoons held at the Congregational Church as it was then known. (Others also took this role on by rotation) 

Committee member and subscriber to Marlow Institute (elected to board of trustees 1895) & Marlow Rowing Club. He was also a judge at the regatta at times. 

Helped to organise 1902 & 1911 Coronation celebrations

President of Reading and Upper Thames Branch of the BMA 1890

Supporter and main lecturer for the St John's Ambulance in Marlow. Insisted that classes should be free for those who could not pay.  Working women could attend free too. 

Treasurer of the Marlow branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society. 

Keen cricketer, who played in many charity matches and for the Institute Cricket team. 

Trustee of Oxford Rd Almshouses (from 1898) 

And Emily:

Was a committee member of the South Bucks School of Domestic Cookery. This held free cookery lessons at the Girls School in St Peters Street in the early 1890's. 

Fundraiser for the St Johns Ambulance, Diamond Jubilee and 1902  Coronation celebrations.

On the ladies commitee of Marlow Cottage Hospital 

Passed an examination in domestic hygiene in 1888, taken in London. I'm uncertain of the awarding body. Her certificate was present by the Duchess of Albany. 

Member of the South Bucks Woman's Liberal Association. 

Post written and researched by Kathryn Day

Other medical related posts

Patients treated at first Cottage Hospital under Dickson and Culhane here

Call the Apothecary here

Marlow Hero Nurse Cassidy here

Matron Mary Cole here

Benjamin Atkinson, surgeon here

Midwife Sarah Price here

The first Cottage Hospital and Provident Nursing Club here

More about the Cottage Hospital and the move to Glade Rd site  here 

Romantic troubles of Dr Culhane here

A full list can be found under the General History option of the top drop down menu. 

 To find all mentions of your ancestors here, see the A-Z person index in the same menu. 

Some sources: 

Kelly's Post Office Directory 1911. (Kelly's Directories Ltd)

London Gazette Part 3, vol 1, 1885, digitized by Google. 

Lancet, Vol 2. 1891, digitized by Google

South Bucks Standard 30 May 1890, 1 January 1892, 12 Jan 1894, 10 June 1904, 8 April 1910, 24 April & 3 July 1913 British Library Archives. 

Bucks Herald 18 July 1891, 20 January &  21 April 1923 as above. 

Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard 18 July 1891. 

Census 1881, 1891, 1901 - transcriptions from microfilm by Charlotte Day and Jane Pullinger. 

War Weekly January 1917

Slough Eton and Windsor Observer May 19 & December 1st 1888,  Slough library. 

Building News collected volumes, 1893. 

©Marlow Ancestors