For almost 200 years there had been a doctor resident in Bow. I was the twenty-ninth.
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THE MEDICAL GENTLEMEN OF BOW
James Lewis
James Lewis, a surgeon aged 50, appears in the Bow 1841 census, along with William Snow.
This is a report in the Western Times of Saturday 8th May 1841:
Birth Extraordinary.—On the 30th ultimo the wife of Wm. Stentiford, of Haller in the parish of Zeal Monachorum was delivered, through instrumental aid, of a female infant with a thumb and five fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, all perfect. The child was still born, and measured twenty inches round the middle. The mother is likely to do well. Accoucheur Mr. Lewis, Bow, late surgeon in St. Thomas, Exeter.
I know no more about him. He never worked for the Crediton Union.
William Stentiford's wife Tryphena, a serge weaver, was forty when this baby was born; she subsequently had one more daughter. Tryphena - a popular Christian name at the time - was born (nee Bradford) in Bow in 1801 and died in Down St Mary in 1877. In 1841 they were living at Aller, just three or four farm labourers' cottages (which no longer exist) between Down St Mary and Clannaborough.
