For almost 200 years there had been a doctor resident in Bow. I was the twenty-ninth.
This is our story
THE MEDICAL GENTLEMEN OF BOW
The Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Down St Mary, and the Radford Family
In about 1780 Benjamin Tucker Radford was born in Lapford. He became a surgeon after serving his apprenticeship with William Stucley of Chulmleigh where they later worked together in partnership.
His father was Rev John Radford of Lapford, the second of four Rev Radfords (fathers and sons) who were clergymen in that village between 1737 and 1861. He married Mary Hacche from Chittlehampton, North Devon, in 1810.
Benjamin Radford came into a large inheritance when his uncle William Tucker of Bradiford in Down St Mary died in 1819.
By 1841 he had retired and was living in St David’s Exeter where he died aged 82 in 1862.
They had a son and a daughter.
Their son, William Tucker Arundel Radford, was born in Chulmleigh in 1818. He attended Mount Radford School in Exeter. He obtained a degree in mathematics at Exeter College Oxford before entering the church and being appointed Rector of Down St Mary in 1843, a position he was to hold for the next 53 years. (During part of that time his cousin, Rev John Arundel Radford "Parson Jack" was Rector of the neighbouring parish of Lapford. This must have been quite embarrassing.)
He had a one man mission to repair and renovate Down St Mary Church which was dilapidated when he arrived in the parish. Incorporating some local stone and employing local craftsmen, the church was largely rebuilt in stages at his own expense between 1846 and 1890 to become, as Pevsner states, “one of the richest Victorian ensembles in rural Devon”.
He married Emily Williama Walsh from Oxford in 1860. Both her parents had died before she was 11 years old. She died in 1872 aged 34. They had two sons: In March 1885 their younger son, Percival Charles Radford, then aged 22, was found dead in the driveway to Clannaborough Rectory, having walked there from his home in Down St Mary a couple of miles away. Death was presumed to be due to natural causes. Their elder son took his father’s name and died at his home in nearby Eggesford in 1915.
Rev WTA Radford died in 1896 aged 78 and is buried in his churchyard. As a mark of respect on the Saturday after his death the meet of Mr Cheriton's otter hounds was cancelled. The rector was remembered for his High Church stance and for his help during the cholera outbreak in Zeal Monachorum in 1866.
His sister, Mary Hacche Radford was born in Chulmleigh in about 1812. In 1839 she married Thomas Thain in St Mary Arches Church, Exeter. (At that time they were both resident in St David’s – where Mary’s parents lived - but the parish church was closed for building work.) Thomas Thain was born in Canada in about 1813. It is probable that his father, also called Thomas, was a merchant from Drumblair, Aberdeenshire. Thomas Thain (the father) was one of a group of Scots who set up businesses in Montreal in about 1800. He was a fur trader, militia officer, businessman, and politician, and between 1822 and 1825 was vice president of the Bank of Montreal. In 1825 he had a mental breakdown and returned to the UK for medical treatment, leaving the records of the finances of his Canadian companies in a mess. He was soon confined to a mental asylum in Aberdeen where he remained until his death in 1832.
When Thomas and Mary married the bridegroom gave his occupation as "of Her Majesty's Customs at Quebec in Lower Canada, North America but now residing in the Parish of St David's".
Canadian records from 1834 show that he was then a “waiter and tidesman” in the Customs Department in Montreal. After the wedding they must have soon moved to Canada. By 1851 Thomas had been promoted to First Assistant in the Montreal Customs Department.
Thomas and Mary Thain's five sons were born in Montreal, and they later had a daughter, born after they returned to Exeter.
John Gerrard Radford b 1840. [Samuel Gerrard (1767-1857) – Born in Ireland, a fur trader in Montreal from 1785, eventually became President of Montreal Bank.] John died in Exeter aged 19.
William Tucker Arundel b 1841 [Took his names from his father’s side.] A lieutenant in the Bengal Army (in various Native Infantry regiments), he died aged 26 in Fyzabad, North India.
Henry Racey b 1843 [Possibly John Racey, a brewer in Montreal]. Probably died at a young age.
Henry Hole b 1845 [?] After completing his schooling in Exeter, he went to Australia working as a sailor for a few years. Shortly after his return in 1873 he appeared in court in Exeter, charged with obtaining a gold ring value £2 8s under false pretences by paying with a worthless cheque. His uncle Rev WTA Radford from Down St Mary (his trustee) explained to the court that there had been a mix-up over some money that he sent to Sydney for him, that had arrived after Henry had left. He was found not guilty. Henry died at Chateauroux near Poitiers in France in 1889.
Alexander Auldjo b 1847 [George Auldjo (1790-1846). Alexander's grandfather Thomas Thain’s cousin, b Aberdeen 1790. He had an import-export business in Montreal. He accompanied Thomas Thain back from Canada after he had his mental breakdown.] Alexander died when he was just a few days old.
Mary Eweretta Ann b 1849. [Eweretta Richardson (1774-1808), her grandfather’s aunt, whose brother, John Richardson, another Scottish Canadian was arguably the most influential businessman in Montreal in the early 1800s. She married Alexander Auldjo, George Auldjo’s uncle.] In 1865, when she was 16, Mary Thain married Rev Andrew Green in Heavitree, Exeter but died three months later in Poiters.
The Canadian Thomas Thain died in Exeter in 1864; Mary his wife survived another 22 years. Both were buried in Down St Mary.
All of the windows in Down St Mary Church commemorate members of Rev Radford's family. Links below:
Elizabeth Furze: possibly Down St Mary's only convict; transported to Tasmania in 1837.
