After reading on this blog recently Andrea’s story of the Eastgate Clock Chester, I am inspired to write a story of this more local clock, on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury.
Dr. Rhodes died suddenly in his study at Ivy Lodge, 104, Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester on Saturday the 25th September, 1909.
He was cremated in the afternoon of Wednesday 29th September, 1909 after an inquest which determined that he had died as a result of an accidental overdose of strychnine he was self-prescribing to alleviate a heart condition.
John Milson Rhodes was born at Stanley Place, Duke Street, Broughton, Lancashire in 1848 to Milson Rhodes, a fustian salesman from Kingston-upon-Hull, East Yorkshire and his wife, the York, Yorkshire born, Ann Keith (née Wemyss).
His grandfathers were Francis Rhodes, a ship owner and Thomas Wemyss, a “Gentleman”. John Milson was the third and final child of his parents. His two older brothers, Francis born on March 21st, 1843 and Thomas Wemyss, born during the September quarter of 1844 were born in Cheetham Hill and would both also become doctors of medicine.
The small size of the family, certainly by the standard of the Victorian era can be partly explained by the fact that Milson Rhodes was often absent from home with his work as a travelling salesman. This is clearly indicated in the family’s entry on the 1861 census (1) which shows, Milson his wife and three children at Lime Grove, Longsight, in the township of Gorton, Lancashire.
However, Milson’s name has a line crossed through it with the word “travelling” added indicating that he was elsewhere on the night of the census. Indeed, further research has revealed that he was actually at that time staying in a hotel at 5, Prince Street, Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
He was also away from home on the 1871 census, when he is shown as a resident in a hotel at 16-17, Church Street, Inverness, Scotland. John Milson’s father apparently did so much travel around Scotland that he found it necessary to rent a property at 56, Buccleuch Street, Glasgow during the middle years of the 1860s decade.
The 1861 census return also sheds some light on the three brothers' path towards qualification as doctors, although John Milson, at 13, was still recorded as a scholar, his two elder brothers were employed: Francis as a “druggist’s assistant” and Thomas Wemyss as a “mechanical draughtsman”. Presumably they continued their education in their free time after work.
John Milson first attended Glasgow University before continuing his studies at Owens Park and The Manchester School of Medicine where he passed with distinction. After gaining further qualifications in both Edinburgh and Brussels he opened a practice in Didsbury. From the outset he took a keen interest in the operation of the Poor Law and sought to reform it, especially with relation to the provision of relief for children and the mentally ill, which at that time included people with a low I.Q. and epilepsy sufferers. He became an Overseer of the Poor for Didsbury, in 1878 and in 1880 was elected to represent the district on the Chorlton Board of Guardians, a post he held for the rest of his life. For four years he was the boards chairman. He also acted as a Justice of the Peace for Manchester and served as Withington’s elected representative on the Lancashire County Council, becoming briefly an Alderman, before the township was incorporated into the City of Manchester, in 1904.
John Milson certainly merited the epithet “A Friend to Humanity” as alongside his work as a doctor, for which he made little money, (2) he worked tirelessly to promote Poor Law reform. He became the leading expert in its administration and how it could/should be improved. In this capacity he travelled extensively around the United Kingdom giving lectures and attended many conferences some of which were abroad in Brussels, Budapest and other European cities.
Dr. Rhodes’s first reforming mission was to promote the provision of trained nursing in all Poor Law Institutions.
His crowning achievement, however, was the founding, in 1906, of the Langho Colony near Blackburn, North Lancashire for the housing and care of epileptics. He was also instrumental in the opening of Styal Cottage Homes which enabled destitute children to be removed from the workhouse environment.
The esteem and affection with which Dr. Rhodes was regarded can be gauged by the number of attendees and floral tributes at his funeral service in Emmanuel Church, Didsbury before his cremation at the Manchester Crematorium. Alongside family members and the many official bodies of which he was a member were not only the Liberal club of which he was a one-time long-serving vice-president but also the Didsbury Conservative Association. Sports clubs were also represented; both Cricket and Lacrosse as was the M.P. Mr. H. Nuttall and the Didsbury and District Amateur Gardeners’ Association. The church service was conducted by the rector Rev. William Charles Ford, assisted by his curate, Rev. Joseph Chapman, who combined this post with his rôle as the Chaplain of the Withington workhouse. Following his death, a subscription list was set up to provide a fitting memorial. As well as the Clock Tower and Drinking Fountain the fund also provided for the opening of the Rhodes Memorial Home (for children) on Cavendish Road, West Didsbury, Manchester.
The Rhodes family grave is C 613 in the Non-conformist's section of Manchester’s Southern Cemetery and John Milson’s name is the last on the headstone.
Pictures; All from the collection of Tony Goulding.
Notes: -
1) This census record took some “digging out” as the transcription of an admittedly difficult to read original was way off. Milson Rhodes was transcribed as William Broader and his place of birth instead of Hull was given as Stoke Farthing which is a hamlet in Wiltshire.
2) Evidence of this is that following his death, his estate on Administration to one of his nephews, Stuart Wemyss Rhodes, on Christmas Eve, 1909, was a fairly modest £657-5s-9d. (Equivalent to £83,211 today). In contrast when his brother, Francis, also a doctor, died on the 31st October, 1888 at his home, Crefeld Villa, in Withington his estate was assessed at a more substantial £1,987-4s-3d. (£274,800).
No comments:
Post a Comment