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
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William Robert Warren
After Francis Street emigrated to Australia in 1838, for about four years the poor of Bow were looked after by a succession of doctors from Morchard Bishop or Crediton. Born in Ottery St Mary in 1815, William Robert Warren was the son of Rev John Warren and Frances Hicks. His father was headmaster at The King’s School in Ottery.
William was probably educated in his father’s school, as his father had been before him. By 1839 he was a pupil to Exeter surgeon John Tucker. (John Tucker was also from Ottery where his father was a solicitor.) He then moved to Uffculme. He married Emma Bussell de Mey in 1841 in Heavitree Church with his father conducting the service.
Their first daughter, Frances, was born while they lived in Uffculme. They moved to Bow in about 1843, where their first son, John, was born. At first they stayed at Grattons, but from 1851 lived at Winsor House. Warren was to provide some stability to medical care, staying in Bow until 1868. Their third child, William, was born in Bow in 1844.
Their last seven children, all born in Bow, died under the age of five and were buried at Bow.
Emma their mother died aged 42 of "malignant scarlet fever" in 1856. She and the seven children are commemorated in a stained glass window in Bow Church.
Children of William and Emma Warren
born died Age at death
Frances Hicks 1841 1905 63
John 1843 1916 73
William Robert de Mey 1844 1910 66
Sarah 1845 1845 0
Emma Louisa 1846 1848 2
Robert Hicks 1848 1848 1
Adeline de Mey 1849 1852 (buried 4
Mary Jane 1851 together) 1
Gwen Agnes 1852 1856 4
George Henry 1853 1854 1
William Warren's Family: His parents His first wife, Emma Their children
He was appointed Medical Officer to the Crediton Poor Law Union in June 1844 with an annual salary of £36 15s.
In 1847 his father died leaving him Leahill – an estate in Uffculme - and £2,000.
After the death of his wife Emma in 1856, the three remaining children were sent to boarding school.
In 1863 he married May Ann Plummer, a farmer's widow from Cornwall, but they did not stay together very long.
In 1866 he was involved in the Cholera outbreak in Zeal Monachorum in which 15 patients died.
He resigned from his position within the Crediton Union in 1868 and moved to the Witheridge area. In 1881 he was lodging with Dr and Mrs Ernest Llewellyn, the surgeon of Witheridge who was Charles Basley’s son in law.
REST IN PEACE?
William Warren died at his residence in “The Square” Witheridge on 25th January 1898, aged 82. He was buried in the churchyard at Witheridge on 29th January.
On 24th May that year his body was exhumed and taken to Bow where it was re-interred by bishop's faculty. There is a brass plaque to his memory in Bow church.
William Warren's will was written in January 1867, just after the Cholera outbreak in Zeal. His estate was valued at £12,000. He left £3,000 to his daughter Frances; £1,500 to his son John, who had received a smaller inheritance than his brother from William's mother's will. All his silverware was to be divided equally between his three children. There would be an annuity of £100 per annum for his second wife, and the residue was to be divided equally among the three children.
