Draft:William Tudor (surgeon)

William Tudor
Born	18 April 1769 Abergavenny, Wales
Died	9 July 1845 Kelston, near Bath, England
Burial place	All Saints Church, Weston, near Bath, England
Monuments	Plaque, Bath Abbey. Window, All Saints Church, Weston, near Bath
Education	Probably St John’s School, Abergavenny, Wales
Occupation(s)	Army surgeon, 1791-1805 Inspector of Hospitals for the Forces, 1799-1805 Surgeon, Bath General Hospital and Surgeon to Royalty at Bath, 1806-1836 Bath Councilman: Constable, Bailiff, Alderman, Mayor, Magistrate, 1808-1835
Spouse(s)	Dorothy Fenwick, Julia Purvis Eyre
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William Tudor (18 April 1769 - 9 July 1845) was a British army and private surgeon, serving as the Mayor of Bath, between 1828 to 1829.

Tudor was appointed surgeon in the 2nd Dragoon Guards in May 1791 at the age of 22, serving in the Duke of York's Flanders campaign 1794-1795, becoming Assistant Inspector of Hospitals to the Forces in 1799. Retiring from active army service on 24 August 1805, he was elected surgeon in the Bath General Hospital on 21 May 1806, a position he retained until retirement on 2 May 1836. He retained his status as Inspector of Hospitals to the Forces throughout his time at the General Hospital, relinquishing the role also in 1836.

During his tenure in the General Hospital, William came to hold appointments as Surgeon or Surgeon Extraordinary to the households of Caroline of Brunswick, Queen Charlotte and the Dukes of Cumberland, York and Cambridge.

Simultaneously with his prestigious surgical career, William was elected to the Bath Council in 1808, rising up the conventional ladder through duties as Chief Constable, Bailiff and Alderman, Justice of the Peace to Mayor in 1828-9. His Council career ended with the extensive changes to councils brought about by the Municipal Reform Act (1835). He retained his role as magistrate and was belatedly elected FRCS in 1844.

He is recognised with a substantial plaque in Bath Abbey and a stained glass window in All Saints Church, Weston, near Bath.

Family and early life

William Tudor was born on 18 April 1769, the second son of Thomas Tudor (1737-1831), surgeon in Abergavennny, and Lucy Draper (1730-1776), both with backgrounds embedded within the gentry of their time and from whom he derived the necessary financial ability to purchase his commission in the army at the age of 22. William’s grandfather, James Tudor Morgan was Sheriff of Monmouthshire and his great grandfather, Richard Tudor, and great great grandfather, Thomas Tudor, were both auditors of Crown estates in Wales, all holding substantial properties. Lucy’s grandfather, Squire William Draper, had likewise inherited substantial estates in the East Riding of Yorkshire from the father of his wife, Anne Daniell of Beswick.

It appears likely William was educated in St John's Grammar School in Abergavenny and that his surgical apprenticeship was served with his father. William married Dorothy Fenwick (1784-1823) on 9 April 1808. Dorothy had inherited considerable wealth initially acquired by her great grandfather Nicholas Fenwick (1692-1752). William and Dorothy had three daughters. After Dorothy's early death, William re-married Julia Purvis Eyre (1798-1890) on 5 June 1827. Julia was again descended, well-endowed, from the well-established Wiltshire Eyre family. He had no further children with her. During his life in Bath, he lived in various addresses within the city, finally building and beginning to live in the fine mansion, Kelston Knoll, Weston, on the outskirts of Bath in 1835.

Army career; Inspector of Hospitals to the Forces

The Army List for 1791 shows William newly added to the list of personnel in the 2nd Dragoon Guards. In the 1794 Army List for the 2nd Dragoon Guards, his name has been deleted and "Continent" written in by hand and his transfer to the Duke of York's contingent is recorded in the London Gazette of April 4, 1794. The Flanders campaign being something of a disaster for the coalition forces, the Duke of York was recalled to England in December 1794 and the British contingent, under General William Harcourt suffered a severe winter of retreat, poorly equipped and clothed, finally being recalled to England in spring 1795. With British losses amounting to some 20,000 men, William, as surgeon, would have had to contend with a heavy casualty rate. This would have placed him on a valuable learning curve as a surgeon.

It is unclear where William went and was based on return to England between that moment and 1806, when, not in the Army Lists from 1795 to 1805, he reappears in the 1806 Lists as an Assistant Inspector of Hospitals to the Forces, the same year he was appointed surgeon in the Bath General Hospital. Evidently he did not return to the 2nd Dragoon Guards. The Royal Kalendar (RK 1798:297) records him appointed as Surgeon Extraordinary to Caroline of Brunswick, Princess of Wales, from 1798 to 1805, which suggests he was in Bath, the appointment likely to have been to attend to her on her visits to Bath to “take the waters”. Although the Army Lists of 1828 and 1836, date his inspectorate career to 1803, The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle of 1799 reports his appointment as Assistant Inspector of Hospitals to the Forces in 1799 but gives no indication of where he was based.

William retired from active army service in 1805. Retitled Deputy Inspector in 1804, he continued to hold his inspectorate position - as a civilian following retirement from active service - purchasing the status of (full) Inspector of Hospitals to the Forces in 1821 and finally relinquishing that role in 1836, probably at the same time as retiring as surgeon at the General Hospital; 1836 was the last year his name was included in the Army Lists.

What William’s Forces inspectorate role involved based in Bath is uncertain. Although the Bath General Hospital and other hospitals in Bath at the time are not listed as having a military hospital function, Holder tells us that, from its inception in 1742, the General Hospital had a history of treating injured soldiers. This may have remained of consequence with the increasing states of war with post-revolutionary France. Possibly relevant also, Bath was apparently a popular location for retired members of the armed forces during William’s career in the city.

Surgeon at Bath General Hospital

The biographical entry of the Royal College of Surgeons on William shows he became a Member of the Company of Surgeons on May 19, 1796. After he retired from active duty as an army surgeon in August 1805 he was ‘unanimously’ elected Surgeon in the Bath General Hospital on 21 May 1806. The General Hospital was a charitable organization and physicians and surgeons were honorary appointees expected to be able to give their services gratuitously, even paying for the privileges of some aspects of his involvement there.The hospital record of 1 May 1827, for example, shows him elected as a governor for the ensuing year – ‘by virtue of .. donation of Forty Pounds and upwards’. William’s career at the hospital coincided with important developments in the hospital’s history in line with rapid improvements in the understanding of disease increasingly based on scientific observation rather than philosophies of ‘humours’. The General Hospital records reveal he was meticulous in attending committee meetings throughout his 30-year tenure.

Evidence that William was keen to be in the forefront of medical and scientific developments is seen in his various professional activities, becoming a member of a number of professional and scientific societies. His 1806 report on the vaccination campaign he participated in indicates he joined the Royal Somerset Jennerian Society at the beginning of his career in Bath. The Medico-Chirurgical Transactions of the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society informs us that he became a Fellow in 1820 (before the Society received its Royal Charter in 1834). An item in the Bath Chronicle of 11 December 1823 lists him among a venerable list of subscribers to the cost of the creation of the Bath Literary and Scientific Institution (BLSI), still active today. BLSI records show he was a proprietor (shareholder) until his death. The obituary at that point in the Provincial and Surgical Association describes him as “long a member of the … Association and also a member of the Council of the Association”. In naming him as active in implementing improvements in the General Hospital in 1828-9, his year as Mayor of Bath, Borsay refers to his membership of the British Medical Society. Ultimate professional recognition in London came belatedly with his election as Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1844, less than a year before his death.

Appointments to royalty

During his tenure as surgeon in the Bath General Hospital, William came to hold a number of appointments as surgeon to visiting royalty. As well as his appointment as Surgeon Extraordinary to Caroline of Brunswick, Princess of Wales, from 1798 to 1805, already referred to, he held appointments as Surgeon Extraordinary to Queen Charlotte 1818 (RK1819:123), Surgeon to the households of the Duke of Cumberland 1821-2 (RK 1821:128; RK 1822:128; 1823:128), the Duke of York 1821-7 (RK 1821:127; RK 1827:127) and the Duke of Cambridge 1823-1845 (RK 1823:129; RK 1850:153). Presumably all these appointments were associated with the royal personages visiting Bath to take the waters and there is little to suggest William’s appointments to royalty involved anything beyond attendance during these visits. Novelist and diarist, Frances Burney (1752-1840), was an eye witness to William’s presence during the visit of Queen Charlotte to ‘take the waters’ in Bath in 1817, recording in a letter to her son that “Dr Gibbs and Mr Tudor waited upon her (the Queen) with the Bath water”.

What this attendance involved for William specifically is not recorded in any document seen. However, Rolls describes the medical conditions accepted at this time as those for which the waters could be therapeutic through douching and enemas with the mineral waters, as administered by the hospital's surgeons, for uterine diseases and constipation respectively. The medical heritage site, www.medicalheritage.co.uk/Bath%20Medics.html, also states William was the army surgeon to the Prince of Wales (Prince Regent, becoming king George IV in 1820). The extent of this and what it entailed is not spelled out.

Private practice

While William served gratuitously as surgeon in the General Hospital, he was able to take increasing advantage of the reputation he developed from that position, his army associations and his progressive listings among the households of the various members of the Royal Family to attract private patients. Bath being the centre it was for fashionable society, his practice would have had him attending private patients of varying degrees of wealth and concern for their personal health issues. Frances Burney, who brought in William to attend to her ailing husband, General Alexandre D’Arblay, refers to William as “a more professed Surgeon the first of this City.”.

Climbing the Bath City Corporation Ladder

In addition to his prestigious medical standing, William's civic standing rose progressively. This was prior to the Municipal Reform Act of 1835; at the municipal level, power and control lay in the hands of "closed corporations" consisting of the mayor and a strictly limited number of selected councilmen – “substantial citizens, prosperous enough in private life and with time to spare for Guildhall meetings, committees, and much other business, not forgetting their expected attendance on various public occasions”. Elected to the Bath City Council as ‘Common Councilman’ in October 1808: William's Council career followed the archetypal pattern with an early alternation of duties as Chief Constable 1809-10 for the first year after election in 1808, Bailiff the next year, 1810-11, Chief Constable again 1813-14 and Bailiff for a second time 1815-16. Then, having sat as a Common Councilman for a further 12 years, all the time rising up the attendance lists of Common Councillors, he reached the top in 1821. He was appointed by the Council as a Justice of the Peace in 1822, attained the red gown status of Alderman in May 1828, and was then elected Mayor just four and a half months later, in October. He remained in the Council up to the point of the major reorganization of councils following the Municipal Reform Act but was still referring to himself as a magistrate in 1845.

William’s Councilman period coincided with rapid expansions in Bath, the population rising from 33,000 in 1801 to 54,000 in 1841. In common with other medium-sized and large Victorian cities, it was wrestling with the problems of overcrowded and poor living conditions, poor sanitation and increased risk of disease, exploitation of child labour, harsh working conditions, increased crime rates, alcoholism, domestic violence, homelessness, begging and social injustice. It was also a period of growing concern throughout Britain about class inequalities with consequent growth of labour movements, restlessness and strikes. In addition, the Corn Laws and the effects of the wars on the Continent on the availability of grain were making the price of bread and other staples very high for the poor. William was thus among the last to serve in the Corporation before the radical reorganization under the Municipal Reform Act. Both in his roles in the General Hospital, still attempting to fulfil its founding purpose of a century earlier – to support, and contain, the poor - and in his work in the Corporation, William would have been deeply immersed in the official attempts to deal with these many issues.

Social life and political leanings

Apart from the information that he and his wife were on the way to the opera when she was taken ill and died, no direct information was found on William’s social activities beyond what his working duties and associated activities entailed. It seems likely that his working and family life left little time for any such activities outside what his work required. Councilmen, particularly once in senior positions – Constable, Bailiff, Alderman and Mayor – would expect to be present at City celebrations and to be invited to parties, celebrations, and so on of other social, commercial, church and military bodies, guilds and more. Significant recognition in the plaque in Bath Abbey and a window dedicated to him in All Saints Church in nearby Weston, suggests the church was an important part of his life and both attendance at services and other church-associated activities would probably have taken a measurable amount of his time.

That William, then Alderman, voted for Lord Brecknock, Tory, in the parliamentary elections of 1929 in the face of more locally popular Whig, General Palmer, indicates his Conservative affiliations supporting the Tory leadership that held sway throughout most of his working career in Bath.

Sources

• William Tudor, FRCS, 1769-1845. An eminent citizen of Bath. Unpublished thesis by Peter C.B. Turnbull, viewable in (1) the Bath Record Office: Archives & Local Studies, Guildhall, Bath BA1 5AW, (2) The Royal College of Surgeons of England, Library & Archives, 38-43 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE (Accession Reference ADDMSS 707) and (3) Monmouth Museum, Shire Hall, Agincourt Square, Monmouth NP25 3DY