By Basil Clarke and Joan Clarke

Old local directories show that, from the mid-nineteenth to the beginning of this century, Yealand Conyers had a resident doctor. Most are merely names, but about two of them something is known. In 1855 a Dr John Walling M.D. was listed. His wife, Mary, left £2000 in 1877 to local charities to commemorate her husband’s connection with the parishes of Warton, Carnforth, Silverdale and Arnside ‘wherein for many years he had practised as a physician’.

His tombstone in Warton churchyard shows that he was a son of John and Ellen Walling of Bradshawe Gate, Silverdale, and that he died suddenly in Preston in 1871 ‘while engaged in the active and benevolent discharge of his duties’. Oddly enough, after 1855 his name does not appear again in the directories¹ so that it is not clear from what base he ‘practised as a physician’.

More is known about Dr James Matthews, the next doctor known to have been practising in Yealand Conyers, particularly because of the happy accident that his ‘Day Book’ for 1868 has survived. It is in the possession of Colonel B. North [Ed now deceased], who very kindly allowed it to be examined.

James Matthews first appeared in the Medical Directory in 1870. It is known that he studied at Guy’s Hospital and qualified in 1862. In 1869 he also acquired a physician’s qualification from Dublin (LKQCP). The six years between first qualifying and surfacing as a general practitioner in Yealand Conyers are unexplained, as are his origins. During the time he was resident in Yealand Conyers, two boys of the name of Matthews from the village were pupils at Burton Boys School; they may have been his sons.

Apart from his local general practice, James Matthews was also surgeon to the Carnforth Iron Company and he was, too, the Medical Officer of the Lancaster Union, and Public Vaccinator. He acted as medical referee more than once in 1868 for the Provincial Insurance Company. The Briton Medical Assurance Company retained him, too.

He was also qualified to act as a certifying surgeon. A certificate given under the factories act and signed by him is reproduced here.

It is from the records of Messrs Shepherd and Co., successors to the Waithmans at Holme Mills. It was kindly supplied by Mrs K. Hayhurst. It is dated 1875, three years after the passing of the Education Act of 1872. There were so many loopholes in the act that it was still possible for children, certified as here to be eight years old, to work in factories quite legally. (It was said that the children from the Mills, when they did attend school, did not do well and were unruly to handle.)

He is not known to have had a partner, but the Day Book records that he called other local doctors in on particular cases, as when Dr. Whitehead of Manchester was consulted over Mrs Gillow of Leighton Hall. She was a chronic case, visited almost dally by Matthews. He also wrote on her behalf to Sir William Jenner in London, a leading physician of the time; and in the spring of 1868 he accompanied Mrs. Glllow down to Clifton, where she stayed for a period, probably to try the effects of treatment at the spas of the area.

The practice and the patients

James Matthews’ Day Book covers the period from 1 January 1868 to 6 January 1869 (with two pages of miscellaneous notes, like the mole-catcher’s address). It gives the addresses and the names of patients, except for one simply entered as ‘Man from Warton’. Children, however, are only occasionally given a name instead of ‘child’ or ‘grandchild’ or ‘niece’. The addresses are sometimes exact, more usually just the name of the village or of the house. Not all the houses are now identifiable.

In the individual entries there is usually a note of medicines prescribed (these are discussed below). Diagnoses are not given, except in so far as they are deducible from the prescriptions or a note about lancing a finger or fixing a splint, or the like. Matthews used a scatter of medical Latin terms to indicate such things as a home visit (iter), a surgery visit (visus), a birth (partus puellae/pueri), morning or evening time (mane, vespere), or a death (mortua est).

The surgery at Dykes Lane, Yealand Conyers, has been altered but is sufficiently recognisable. It was a separate one-storey building with two rooms – a waiting room and a doctor’s room. The waiting room gave on to Dykes Lane, and a lamp at the entrance behind a sheet of red glass (still there) indicated when the surgery was open. (The entrance door has been blocked up. )

It is not recorded in the Day Book what the arrangements for preparing medicines were, but it can be assumed, till other evidence turns up, that he was chiefly his own pharmacist. The supply of medicines was a regular part of a practitioner’s income, and there was a long economic rivalry between medical practitioners and pharmacists, especially in towns. By 1879 there was a ‘chemist and druggist’ in both Milnthorpe and Carnforth, but neither would have been easy to reach in those days. It was probably the expectation that village patients collected their medicines from the surgery as still happens in Carnforth practices.

The practice was centred on Yealand Conyers, but covered patients in an area of about four miles radius. Warton, Silverdale and Burton with Holme were substantial parts. Borwick and Priest Hutton and Carnforth were visited; Matthews’ duties as vaccinator and medical officer of the Lancaster Union took him to Carnforth anyway. Occasional patients at Beetham or Over Kellet were seen – and there was even one from Howgill, Sedbergh, though not visited at home.

Medical treatment was on a payment basis, though there were health insurance schemes, and some of Matthews’ numbering of patients names may be related to these. The large estates had different (often adjacent) account numbers for the family and the estate people, But Matthews’ practice covered the social range, as his regular use of the conventions of the time over naming shows. There are Esquires, distinguished from Misters and from those who did not qualify for either, and the distinctions are maintained in entries. Certainly the estates and the Esquires paid for more visits, but were not exclusively cultivated. Miss Ford of Morecambe Lodge, for example, required frequent visits, but later she called at the surgery instead.

The Day Book does not indicate the schedule of charges, and there are only individual items of cash payment, as for an inhaler (6 shillings) or for ‘Whitehead’s (ring) pessary, modified’ at 12 shillings and eightpence. Sometimes an entry has ‘dr’ against it, perhaps recording some lagging over the bill. One entry is overwritten with ’Pauper’. Later in the year he had a lot of dealings with Burton House School (Mrs Nutter) and with one or two of the teachers. There was possibly an epidemic of flu or the like in the village in October, and Dr Matthews was seeing up to eight or nine girls on a visit: each entry was recorded as a visit, it has to be admitted, the parents presumably getting the bills. (Mrs. Nutter may have been more anxious than usual that year; she had recently lost a child of her own).

Matthews was punctilious in serious cases, and would call two or three times a day when necessary. He evidently accepted that he was permanently on call, regardless of ‘unsocial’ hours. Thus, at Warton he was delivering one baby at 1 a.m. and then another in the village at 3.15 a.m. Still, human impatience could show through; once, called out for a journey of several miles late at night, he recorded ‘Iter (journey) and botheration! 10.30 p.m.’ Saturdays, at least, tended to have a lighter load, but Sunday was not a day off.

Matthews attended births regularly, one or two or more a month, but simply recorded the fact, and the sex of the child, though there were follow-up visits where necessary. There is no comment on antenatal care or any specific mention of a midwife. During the year only one infant death related to child-birth occurred among the births recorded. Matthews did once meet another practitioner in Burton to consider the case, of an infant at the King’s Arms who died in convulsions during the night, but this was not a new-born child.

The Doctoring

The medical profession was radically tidied by the Medical Act of 1858; that was four years before James Matthews qualified. It is widely considered that the new era of ‘modern medicine’ was being established during the 1860s. Doctors of today may well recognise the work of the 1860s and after with a sense of more familiarity than is possible with that of earlier practitioners. On the practical side, the use of Laennec’s stethoscope was increasingly understood, the clinical thermometer, which allowed exact assessment of the degree of ‘fever’, was coming in. Medical theory was also in a progressive phase. Lister’s antisepsis; the experimental medicine of’ Claude Bernard, which linked physiology and medicine; pathology, optics, dentistry were all developing.

All these improvements, however, diffused slowly. Probably few country practitioners were making use of many of them at the time under consideration. James Matthews appears to have been an active and conscientious doctor, yet there is no clear indication in the Day Book that his procedures were very advanced. Examination of the patient, in the modern, sense, was not apparently practised routinely, since such examinations were specially recorded, e.g., ‘examination of ears’, ‘examination of chest’.

On the other hand, his range of practical procedures was wide. He records in his Day Book dealing with cut fingers, setting fractures, bandaging wounds, lancing abscesses, syringing ears. Quite a number of tooth extractions were undertaken, too, implying there was no local dentist. In August 1868 he amputated the left arm of William Barnes after an industrial accident at the Wigan Coal and Iron Company at New England, for £3. The outcome is not known, but the patient survived at least long enough to receive a-post-operative visit.

The Medicines

Changes in therapeutics came later than the changes in theory and diagnosis. Almost all Matthews’ prescriptions would have been accepted as perfectly correct treatment up to the time of the Second World War, and indeed almost all of these appear in the 1949 British Pharmaceutical Codex. It is only since then that the enormous range of new drugs has made his therapeutic armamentarium seem so small and relatively ineffective.

Nevertheless, many of the drugs that he used were in fact helpful. There is also the first signs of a chemical industry. Though most of the prescriptions were for mixtures to be made up in a dispensary, a few were already standard mixtures e.g. Parrish’s Food, paregoric, sal volatile, chlorodyne.

A doctor nowadays would not make such free use of opium, but there were few other sedatives and no other pain-killers. Even aspirin was not known till the very end of the century. Matthews used opium in modest doses generally, and it was probably less freely employed than the equally powerful sedatives (barbiturates, tranquillisers, etc.) prescribed nowadays.

He used some laxatives (aloes, jalap, scammony) which were much fiercer in their action than would be acceptable now. He was not alone in this. The idea that getting rid of some ‘toxin’ in the body was highly desirable is a very ancient belief and one which dies hard among patients even today.

He very frequently prescribed cough mixtures. Probably none of the ingredients, except opium, were very efficient, but they are still to be found in current patent cough medicines, as well as in the simpler mixtures prescribed by general practitioners. He used colchicum (autumn crocus), a specific still used in gout. He prescribed iron. He used sulphur ointment (the only treatment then for scabies). He used bismuth, magnesium carbonate and soda bicarbonate to ease indigestion. All were rational treatments.

Some of Matthews’ prescriptions do not have an easy rationale to modern eyes – antimony, hydrocyanic acid, belladonna, camphor, quinine (not for malaria) and digitalis (not for heart disease). Nevertheless, they should not be dismissed as mere placebos. All the drugs given above were listed by a famous contemporary of Matthews as ‘febrifuges’, or drugs to deal with fever. Now that so many infections can be directly controlled by antibiotics we have forgotten the crying need for any preparations which would lessen the discomfort and danger of high fever.

There was, in January 1869, a prescription for champagne which invites speculation; the patient appeared to have been treated for digestive disorders, and if they had been chronic, he may chiefly have needed cheering up by then. The fact that the condition had not cleared up may, of course, indicate some internal complaint beyond the scope of the medical art of the day to recognise or treat. Who can say that the prescription was not helpful?

Matthews is last mentioned in a local directory in 1885. His last entry in the Medical Directory was in 1889, when he was still given as of Yealand Conyers. It is not known if he died or retired then. Yealand Conyers was not, however, left without, a doctor. In 1885 there was a Dr Edwin Brownlow, in 1898 Dr Atkinson, and in 1906 Dr Fullerton. Not to forget that, the vicar, the Rev. Joseph Mitchell, M.D., MRCP, MRCS, was also an experienced doctor, though he no longer practised.

[Ed Their oldest surviving son, John, was born in 1801. He trained as a doctor at Guy’s and St. Thomas, London. He qualified MRCS and LSA in 1830, and obtained his M.D. in Edinburgh in 1851. In 1831 he married Mary Proctor, daughter of the Vicar of Hornby. 

Dr Walling lived in Yealand Conyers, in premises ‘adjoining’ Beechfield. In 1855 we know that he was the resident Doctor. But he didn’t stay in the village long. In 1857 an auction sale was held (Furniture, effects, garden tools and an excellent iron framed mangle with a fly wheel) on the occasion of his leaving the neighbourhood. He was also presented with a very fine clock by the Gillow family. On the death of Mrs Walling her effects were sold and the Gillows purchased the clock. It can still be admired at Leighton Hall. 

He went to live in Stephenson Terrace, Preston. He was an Honorary Medical officer at Preston Dispensary, and later at the Infirmary. His practice in Preston ‘was almost devoted to charitable objects, rarely accepting a fee. He was a firm adherent of Total Abstinence.’ He died suddenly in his seventieth year in his own home.

It is always particularly pleasing to receive follow up information on any article. After reading “Two Yealand Conyers Doctors”. Mr M. L. Walling, has given this further information.

The Walling family has long been established in Silverdale. Wallings were known to be living in Dyke House in 1605. In 1706 a John Walling purchased Bradshawgate, and there continued to be Wallings there until 1893. In 1799 John Walling of Bradshawgate married Ellen Burrow. Their oldest surviving son, John, was born in 1801. He trained as a doctor at Guy’s and St. Thomas, London. He qualified MRCS and LSA in 1830, and obtained his M.D. in Edinburgh in 1851.

In 1831 he married Mary Proctor, daughter of the Vicar of Hornby. Dr Walling lived in Yealand Conyers, in premises ‘adjoining’ Beechfield, where in 1857 an auction sale was held (Furniture, effects, garden tools and an excellent iron framed mangle with a fly wheel) on the occasion of his leaving the neighbourhood.

He went to live in Stephenson Terrace, Preston. He was an Honorary Medical officer at Preston Dispensary, and later at the Infirmary. His practice in Preston ‘was almost devoted to charitable objects, rarely accepting a fee. He was a firm adherent of Total Abstinence.’ He died suddenly in his seventieth year in his own home. On the occasion of his removal to Preston he was presented with a very fine clock by the Gillow family. On the death of Mrs Walling her effects were sold and the Gillows purchased the clock, It can still be admired at Leighton Hall.

Published in Mourholme Magazines Issue 14 1990

1. It is always particularly pleasing to receive follow up information on any article. After reading “Two Yealand Conyers doctors”.
   
   Mr M. L. Walling, has given this further information.
   
   The Walling family has long been established in Silverdale. Wallings were known to be living in Dyke House in 1605. In 1706 a John Walling purchased Bradshawgate, and there continued to be Wallings there until 1893. In 1799 John Walling of Bradshawgate married Ellen Burrow.
   
   Their oldest surviving son, John, was born in 1801. He trained as a doctor at Guy’s and St. Thomas, London. He qualified MRCS and LSA in 1830, and obtained his M.D. in Edinburgh in 1851. In 1831 he married Mary Proctor, daughter of the Vicar of Hornby.
   
   Dr Walling lived in Yealand Conyers, in premises ‘adjoining’ Beechfield, where in 1857 an auction sale was held (Furniture, effects, garden tools and an excellent iron framed mangle with a fly wheel) on the occasion of his leaving the neighbourhood.
   
   He went to live in Stephenson Terrace, Preston. He was an Honorary Medical officer at Preston Dispensary, and later at the Infirmary. His practice in Preston ‘was almost devoted to charitable objects, rarely accepting a fee. He was a firm adherent of Total Abstinence.’ He died suddenly in his seventieth year in his own home. On the occasion of his removal to Preston he was presented with a very fine clock by the Gillow family. On the death of Mrs Walling her effects were sold and the Gillows purchased the clock. It can still be admired at Leighton Hall. ↩︎