| |
|
Clan Munro USA
Genealogy Pages
|
 |
|
 1869 - 1949 (80 years)
-
| Name |
Hector Munro |
| Born |
24 May 1869 |
Glengarry, Scotland  |
| Gender |
Male |
| Died |
8 Dec 1949 |
| Person ID |
I26502 |
Munro |
| Last Modified |
27 May 2001 |
| Family |
Elsie Ford, b. Abt 1876, Of, Yorkshire, England , d. 1905 (Age ~ 29 years) |
| Married |
3 Aug 1904 |
| Last Modified |
20 Jan 2009 |
| Family ID |
F9205 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
-
| Notes |
- Hector received his first schooling from the Monks at Fort Augustus and went on to Raining's School in Inverness and Aberdeen University where he graduated MB, CM in 1894.
His first job was as Ship's Surgeon in the British India Steam Navigation Company. Some time before 1898, he became the Dispensary Surgeon at the Bradford Infirmary. He remained at the Bradford Infirmary until 1909. Although a poor peoples' Dispensary Surgeon was not a very well paid job, he seems to have both prospered and developed his interests there. He was on the board of Guardians administering the Poor Law from 1898 to 1904.
He married Elsie Ford in 1904. She was from a North Yorkshire Quaker family. Her father owned a silk spinning business, which, by the time it shut down in 1970, was the last of its kind in Great Britain.
In 1904, he was defeated in a local election for the ILP Parliamentary candidate. Although he retained his interest in Labour politics, he never tried to enter Parliament again.
He became interested in Naturism, and because of that he and his bride spent part of their honeymoon camped in a tent on the lawn at Auchindoune. It is said he enjoyed walking barefoot in the mud.
Elsie died of peritonitis in 1905. They had no children and Hector never remarried.
In 1909, he moved to Letchworth, Hampshire, and in 1910 to Welbeck Street, London, and in 1915 the Medical Directory gives his address as 128 Harley Street.
At the beginning of World War I, he was on the Board of Management of the Medico-Psychological Clinic in Brunswick Square. The Chief Consultant at the time was the world famous Psychologist William McDougall FRS. The miseries caused by the German invasion of Belgium attracted a lot of attention in England, and many medical men including Hector, went to Belgium on a voluntary basis to see what they could do. Hector perceived that the problem was not lack of doctors, or hospitals or medical supplies, but an acute shortage of ambulances to carry the wounded from the front to the hospitals in the rear. He therefore returned to England and In August 1914, he raised a flying ambulance corps to go to the assistance of the hard-pressed Belgian army. Since he was a leading feminist he decided to include four women in his team in order that they might prove their worth by going onto the battlefield under fire."
One of the ladies was the 18 year old Mairi Chisholm, originally from Inverness, and another was the novelist May Sinclair, who was also a subscriber to the Medico-Psychological Clinic and on its Board of Management. Once in Belgium, Hector and his team, including the ladies, were in the thick of it, living in danger, discomfort and dirt, and often under fire. May Sinclair proved to be insubordinate, and on one occasion disobeyed Hector's direct order. After three weeks funds were running out, and Hector sent May Sinclair home to collect more money, and took the opportunity to sack her by getting the War Office to refuse to give her a pass to return to Belgium. Though deeply hurt by her dismissal, she became Hector's patient after the war, and left him her books by Jung in her will. The gallant conduct of Hector and his team was widely reported, and made his reputation. He was awarded the Order of Leopold, Chevalier grade, with the crossed swords denoting bravery in the field. He also qualified for the rare British 1914 Star (sometimes called the Mons Star) with the bar awarded to those who had been under fire during the period from 5 Aug to 22 Nov 1914.
The future Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, then a highly unpopular person because of his attitude to the war, visited Hector's Corps. His reputation was so bad that the Belgian authorities arrested him immediately on arrival. To save his friend further humiliation Hector undertook to be responsible for him, and drove him to the coast, and put him on board the boat for England.
Following a reorganisation of the Front, Hector relinquished command of the Corps, and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, who kept no record of the services of their temporary officers. It is believed that he served mainly in France, but the only record found shows that he became a Captain in 1918, and was in Machrihanish with the 272nd Costal Squadron RAF from July 1918 until demobilised in March 1919.
Shortly after demobilisation, Hector met that extraordinary woman, Eglantyne Jebb, the founder of the Save the Children Fund. She virtually mesmerised him into putting off the rebuilding of his medical practice and going to Vienna on behalf of the Fund. The effect of the wartime naval blockade of Germany was perhaps at its most terrible in Austria and Hungary. Later Hector described the conditions he found: "children were actually dying in the street. I saw in a hospital 38 women who were suffering spontaneous fracture of the hips. The children's bones were like rubber. Clothing was utterly lacking: children were wrapped in paper."
Apart from setting up various relief organisations in Austria and Hungary, Hector raised money for the Fund. For instance, by speaking to the Executive of the Miners' federation he received a cheque for 39,000 pounds Raising funds on another level, he accompanied Eglantyne Jebb on a visit to the Pope, who gave them a personal cheque for 25,000 pounds and the proceeds of twice-yearly church collections until the famine was over.
It is not known exactly when Hector resumed his private practice. He became a member of the British Psychological Society in 1926. He wrote to Ramsay MacDonald about Spiritualism in 1928. We have a glimpse of him in 1933 in the auto-biography of Patience Strong who typed letters in Hector's flat in Park Crescent on behalf of the Labour Party. In 1934, aged 65, he invited Ramsay MacDonald to the opening of his new clinic. His medical activities gradually decreased as the years rolled on. He died in 1949.
An obituary appeared in The New Statesman and Nation: "Like John Burns he never wore an overcoat and walked about in the dirtiest weather oblivious of the wind and the rain playing with his silver hair. He was one of Keir Hardie's closest comrades. For forty years he attended at Labour Party conferences, listening in silence and commenting vigorously in private. He was one of the first correctly to diagnose Ramsay MacDonald's political disease. As a doctor he was a great authority on foot diseases, and believed that, in the absence of the real thing, artificial sunshine could soon be used to banish the remanins of poverty diseases. He was among the first to discover the vitamin properties of fruit, which, perhaps, explains why he was for many years Bernard Shaw's doctor. He was the first Harley Street specialist to join the National Health Scheme, and at his various enterprises, the only failure was his inability to reduce G. K. Chesterton's figure."
Beneath his fun-loving and very likeable exterior there was a core of competence in his profession and a sense of purpose.
Ref: "Clan Munro Magazine" - No. 21 - 1996 - p. 8-10
|
|
|
|
