A tale of a doctor and his war medal
It follows revelations about royal links to a town bedspread
LAST week we revealed the origins of how the signature of the-then Queen Mother, Queen Alexandra, ended up on a special Loughborough bedspread. Following the end of the First World War in 1918, a huge fund-raising effort was launched to raise money to build the Loughborough Carillon Tower War Memorial, which was eventually completed in 1923. Various activities were organised and one of those was a signed bedspread. One of the signatures on the spread is of Queen Alexandra. But just how the Queen came to sign the spread is a question that has puzzled many. However thanks to the hard work of volunteers it appears that the puzzle was solved in the form of a Loughborough doctor, Dr Robert Stamford, whose Boer War medal was recently purchased by Loughborough Carillon War Museum. Dr Stamford’s family also signed the bedspread. His wife’s son from her first marriage was Queen Alexandra’s godson. This week Marigold Cleeve of Loughborough Carillon War Museum carries on the remarkable tale and tells the story of Dr Stamford and his medal.
Loughborough GP’s Boer War Medal.
THE Carillon War Memorial Museum has recently acquired the 2nd Boer War medal of Dr. Robert Basil Stamford, a Loughborough surgeon and GP.
Robert Basil Stamford was born in Tibshelf, Derbyshire, on 30th April 1872. He was the son of William Ackrill Stamford and his first wife Florence Louisa (née Walter) who were married at the Church of St. Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield, on 7th June 1871. Robert’s father was a General Medical Practitioner and Surgeon in Tibshelf for over fifty years before retiring in 1918. He was also a surgeon at the Chesterfield Hospital. He was an active member of the St. John Ambulance Association and had earned a long service medal granted by Queen Victoria. He was also a surgeon instructor for the Tibshelf Colliery Ambulance Association. In addition he was a well-known Derbyshire Freemason and was 1st Master of the St. Thomas’s Lodge, Tibshelf. Robert had one sister Grace who died at the age of thirteen in 1889. Another sister died, two hours old, in 1873. The Stamford family lived at Heathfield House, Tibshelf. In 1881, when Robert was eight years old, he was a boarder at Green Hall Unitarian Preparatory School in Belper, Derbyshire, and he was the youngest pupil in the school. From 1885 to July 1890 he then attended Repton School. After Repton, on 14th October 1890, he entered Guy’s Hospital Medical College, London, and in his spare time played in the Guy’s cricket eleven and football team. Robert’s mother died, aged 42, in 1891 and on 24th November 1896 his father was remarried to Sarah Oates at the Church of St. Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield. Robert was registered as a doctor and licensed by the Royal College of Physicians, London, on 3rd May 1897. In the same year he was also admitted as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (England). Robert’s first position was that of House Surgeon to Sir William Arbuthnot Lane at Guy’s Hospital and through Sir William’s influence he also became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (Edinburgh). On 8th March 1899 he was initiated, as his father had been, into the Freemasons at St. Thomas Lodge, Tibshelf. In 1898, while Robert was a House Surgeon at Guy’s Hospital, he gave medical evidence at the Old Bailey in the trial of George Williams for the murder of his wife Wilhelmina Williams. When the 2nd Boer War broke out in South Africa Robert offered his services as a civilian surgeon. He was attached to the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) and sent to Cape Town. He sailed from Southampton on the SS Jelunga (British India Steam Navigation Company Ltd) on 21st December 1899. After only seven months in South Africa, however, he contracted typhoid fever. He was invalided home on the SS Bavarian (Allan Line), arriving at Southampton in July 1900. He recovered and returned to South Africa on 26th May 1901. He was awarded the Queen’s South Africa Medal, with clasps for Cape Colony, Paardeberg, and South Africa 1901. After the war Robert joined Dr. Arthur Benjamin Jackson Eddowes in his medical practice at 6 Market Place, Loughborough. Dr. Arthur Eddowes died in 1908 and by 1911 Robert had established a medical practice in partnership with Dr. Frank R. L. Atkins at Park View, 26 Leicester Road, Loughborough. By 1920 his partner in the practice was Dr. Cecil G. Richardson and Robert no longer lived on the premises – he had married and moved to The Red House, Burton Walks, Loughborough. Today Park View is still used by medical practitioners of the Park View Surgery. By 1914 Robert was an Honorary Medical Officer at Loughborough General Hospital. When the First World War broke out he was called up and, having been appointed a Captain in the RAMC Territorial Force, did very valuable work as a surgeon at the 5th Northern General Hospital in Leicester. In September 1916 he was fined 30 shillings in the Loughborough Petty Sessions Court for having a brilliant light shining from a window of his Park View premises. A nurse employed by his medical practice had been rather careless. Robert was an active member of the British Medical Association and became Chairman of the Leicester and Rutland Division, President of the Leicester Medical Society and was for many years a member of the Leicestershire Panel and other committees. He hunted with the Quorn Hunt and was a keen golfer. For several years he was president of the Loughborough Cricket Club and he also played for the Gentlemen of Leicestershire Cricket Club. On 4th December 1919 Robert married Emma Pauline Cunliffe-Owen, a widow, by Licence at Holy Trinity Church, Upper Chelsea, London. He had been friends with Emma Cunliffe-Owen and her first husband Edward, a barrister, for a number of years. Robert’s wife Emma was well-known in her own right. She was the daughter of Sir Francis Phillip Cunliffe-Owen and his wife Jenny (née Von Reitzenstein). Her father was the director of the prestigious South Kensington Museum, which would later become the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1882 Emma married her first cousin, Edward Cunliffe-Owen, with whom she had four children, Francis (who died in 1912), Dorothy, Sybil and Alexander. By 1901 there seems to have been some distancing between Emma and Edward as they were not listed at the same abode. In the 1911 census Emma was a visitor with her younger son Alexander (a godson of Queen Alexandra) in the household of Robert Stamford in Loughborough. Any perceived differences between Emma and Edward seem to have been put to one side when war was declared between England and Germany. It was said that in early September 1914 Mrs. Cunliffe-Owen, on rallying some men-friends for not being in khaki, was challenged to raise a battalion of middle and upper class men up to the age of forty-five. She promptly went with them to a post-office and telegraphed to Lord Kitchener “Will you accept complete battalion of upper and middle class men, physically fit, able to shoot and ride, up to the age of forty-five?” The reply was “Lord Kitchener gratefully accepts complete battalion.” Mr. and Mrs. Cunliffe-Owen then proceeded to set up a recruiting office in the Indian Room at the Hotel Cecil on The Strand in London. From this point forward they worked together as a highly effective team, often visiting different cities in England on recruiting drives. They successfully raised two battalions, the Sportsman’s Battalions. These battalions were also known as the 23rd (Service) Battalion (1st Sportsman’s) and 24th (Service) Battalion (2nd Sportsman’s) of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment). A third Sportsman’s Battalion, the 30th (Reserve) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, was formed in July 1915. According to an article in The Sportsman’s Gazette blogspot (http://sportsmansgazette.blogspot.com), in 1916, while two of the Sportsman’s Battalions were fighting in France, Emma and her son Alexander took a ship bound for Morocco. It seems that Alexander was with the Welsh Fusiliers, stationed in Gibraltar, although quite why his mother chose to travel with him is unclear. What is clear, however, is that a Robert Basil Stamford, surgeon, was travelling to Gibraltar on the same ship. In 1918, at the age of 61, after a period of illness, Edward Cunliffe-Owen, CMG, died in Loughborough, leaving Emma a widow with an uncertain future. Edward’s estate had only amounted to £14 0s 3d. One year later she married Robert Stamford and the couple went for their honeymoon to the French Riviera, sailing to Marseilles on the SS Morvada. Afterwards Emma came to live in Loughborough and in January 1920 she was awarded the OBE for her war initiatives. Robert and Emma Stamford lived at The Red House, Burton Walks, Loughborough, and for a time between 1920 and 1927 Robert’s father who had retired and was widowed for the second time, lived with them. Robert Basil Stamford died suddenly on 4th May 1935, aged 64. He had outlived his father by only one year. His funeral was held in two parts, a service at St. Peter’s Church, Loughborough, followed by a service and burial at the Church of St. John the Baptist, Tibshelf. The coffin was draped with the Union Jack and the Last Post was sounded at the graveside. An obituary for Robert Basil Stamford in the British Medical Journal included the following tribute: “The sudden passing of Mr. Robert Basil Stamford whilst in active practice at Loughborough has left a gap in the profession in that town which will be difficult to fill. “Tall, elegant, of soldierly appearance, a fine sportsman in many branches of sport, he was very popular, and it is not too much to say that he was beloved by all classes; and though this is not usually the highest praise which can be given to a man it was true of Stamford in every sense of the word. “Of especially charming manners and a very agreeable disposition, he had at the same time a mentality which showed a character of great decision in medical and other matters. He was a very capable surgeon, and his opinion was frequently sought by his colleagues in the town and neighbourhood.” Robert’s widow Emma, who had suffered throughout her life from rheumatoid arthritis and consequent reduced mobility, died at The Red House in Loughborough on 13th November 1950, aged 87. All her children by her first husband had predeceased her but Robert had left her his entire estate of £9998 8s 4d. There were no children from her marriage to Robert Stamford. The Red House, where Dr. and Mrs. Stamford spent their married life is now part of Loughborough Grammar School.