Charles Oxenden

CHARLES OXENDEN Cricketer, Cleric and Medical Pioneer PHILIP H. BLAKE St. Patrick's Day, 1979, was the 105th anniversary of the death of the Rev. Charles Oxenden, Hon. Canon of Canterbury and first rector of the separate living of Barham, near Canterbury - and the fact will mean practically nothing to most people. Yet, a great national institution, the Eton v. Harrow cricket match, played annually at Lord's for over 150 years, was his foundation, and as a pioneer in the administration of health services for the poor he was advocating to a Parliamentary Committee 125 years ago that free medical attention should be provided on a national basis to everyone below a certain income. At that time, also, he was managing a medical provident society of over 2,000 members that he himself had founded 20 years previously. But past is all his fame. The very spot, Where many a time he triumph'd, is forgot. It is the object of this paper to recall some of the details of this useful life. Charles Oxenden was the fourth son of Sir Henry Oxenden, 7th baronet, of Broome House in Barham, where he was born on 23rd May, 1800, baptized privately three days later and was received into the Church at Barham on 25th July following. He went to school first at Eton, but was later transferred to Harrow. Although there is now no record of the exact dates of his entering and leaving either school, he certainly entered Eton in 1814 after Election, i.e., after late July, when candidates were chosen King's Scholars, and probably, therefore, at the beginning of the autumn term. He left before Election, 1817, 1 possibly at the end of the Easter term, ' H.E. Chetwynd-Stapylton, The Eton School Lists from 1791 to 1850 (London and Eton, S.P. Williams, 1863; index with 2nd ed., 1864), 98a. 59 PHILIP H. BLAKE Charles Oxenden. 1800-1874 (From a photograph in the possession of the author). CHARLES OXENDEN because he was already at Harrow in July the same year. 2 It was while he was at Harrow that Oxenden came to the fore as a cricketer, though much of his experience and skill at the game must have been gained at Eton. Such was his enthusiasm for it, however, that in 1818 he arranged a match with Eton, played on 29th and 30th July, that has since come to be regarded as the first of the regular series of matches between the two schools that are now so famous as one of the most fashionable cricket fixtures of the year. It was held at Lord's, where, with one possible exception, they have all been held. Who captained Eton on that occasion has not been recorded, although not unlikely it was W. Pitt. Oxenden was Captain of Harrow, who won by 13 runs. The next completely recorded match in the subsequently annual series was in August, 1822, when Harrow again won. Oxenden appears to have been a good all-rounder, although he must have been noted as a catch, for in this first match with Eton he caught out their men five times, one of them twice, the first time for one and the second for a duck. As a bat he made the highest score for Harrow with 31 in the second innings, though he was stumped for a duck in the first. He also had a tum at bowling and took one wicket. As a cricketer, however, he seems to have been bettered by W. Pitt of Eton, who not only made the highest score of the match with 7 and 37, but took no less than eight of the Harrow wickets. 3 It is said that there is no record of a match with Eton in 1819,4 but a letter from J(ohn) Moulton, dated Eton, July 17th (1819), and addressed to the Captain of Harrow, sends 'a challenge to your eleven from that of Eton to play either at Eton on Tuesday the 27th inst. or at Lord's on Thursday the 5th August'. It concludes: 'On the other side you will find a list of our eleven', 5 and alongside this list is the record of one innings against Harrow. Eton were all out for 93, Oxenden6 having taken two of their wickets, for 8 and 2 respect- 2 Harrow - Rules of John Lyon and Lists of Names (Harrow Sch., Vaughan Lib. MSS), 73. 'Franklyn Brook (ed.), Scores of the Cricket Matches betweeen Eton and Harrow (London, F.E. Robinson, 1900), 2. • F.S. Ashley-Cooper, Eton and Harrow at the Wicket (London, St. James's Press, 1922), 26. s This list agrees with the eleven as given by R.A. Austen Leigh (ed.) in Eron Records (Eton, Spottiswoode, 1903), 24, except that W. Thorpe, Campbell and G.W. Barnard were replaced by G.S. Hume, J. Chapman and Bailie. • This was virtually certainly not Charles Oxenden but his younger brother Graham, then_ in Form Upper V (op. cit. in note 2, p. 78). He was baptized at Barham on 10th March, 1802. After Harrow he entered Cambridge as pensioner at Christ's College in 1821, taking h.is B.A. degree in 1825, and as '- - Oxenden Jun.' he is recorded as playing cricket for the University Club against the Town in 1822. 61 PHILiP H. BLAKE ively, being the only bowler to have taken more than one.7 This record provides the names of seven of the Harrow team8 and it can be inferred that the match probably took place at Lord's, but there is nothing to indicate why there was only one innings or, if more, why they were not recorded. It was at the end of the summer term of 1818 that Oxenden apparently left Harrow, and in December the following year he was admitted pensioner, i.e., one who pays his own way, at Christ's College, Cambridge, having matriculated at Michaelmas. Almost immediately his fondness for cricket manifested itself, for in his first year he and Henry Hannington, a scholar from Eton and later Fellow of King's College, formed the Cambridge University Cricket Club, which came into being in the spring of 1820, with 41 members of whom 16 were honorary. Unfortunately, no records of Oxenden's time remain except the score book, which mentions the institution of the club and gives among a few miscellaneous notes the names of its 41 original members and the 'treasurers' who managed it from 1820 to 1825. There were two treasurers, Oxenden and Hannington, in the first year and thereafter three. 9 It is, therefore, not now possible to distinguish the respective parts played by Oxenden and Hannington in founding the club, though, inasmuch as Hannington had already been at the university for nearly two and a half years when Oxenden arrived and during that time had apparently made no move towards organising a club, the logical inference would appear to be that the initiative came from Oxenden, and that it was he who was primarily responsible for its foundation. Who captained the first of the new club's first-class matches has not been recorded, but it was played in 1820 against the Town Club, which won by 75 runs, Oxenden having made the highest score for the University with innings of 8 and 34. On 21st May, 1821, again playing against the Town, he made 4 and 17, though on this occasion he was only third highest scorer for the University, which again lost, this time by 24 runs. On May 21st the next year, however, the University beat the Town by seven wickets, Oxenden having scored 7 not out in the first innings and 17 in the second. With a batting average of 15.40 he was one of the best bats at the University in his time. He did not bowl in the 1820 match and He died unmarried on 8th December, 1826, and was buried at Barham on 14th December following. ' Harrow School, Vaughan Lib. MSS, File C. • They were G.T. Vigne, G. Baillie, G. Croke, J.P. Byde, J.S. Forbes, G. Oxenden and J.E. Armstrong. 9 W.J. Ford, A History of the Cambridge. University Cricket Club, 1820-1901 (Cambridge and London, Wm. Blackwood and Sons, 1902), 3-4. 62 CHARLES OXENDEN whether he did or not in the following two is not known, for no scores of the Town innings were recorded. 10 Oxenden left Cambridge on taking his B.A. degree in 1823. In the same year he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Lincoln 11 and a year later was ordained priest. 12 No licence to a curacy for him has been found at either Canterbury or Lambeth, but there can be no doubt that he officiated as Curate in Charge of Bishopsboume from 1828 until 1844 and perhaps later, for he consistently signed the registers as such from 30th March, 1828 (baptisms) until 29th March, 1844 (burials). It is noteworthy that during the whole of that time the rector 13 did not sign the registers once, and it seems probable that during it, also, Oxenden occupied the old rectory. He certainly did so in 1829 when his wife died; and he was still there in 1840 when the Rev. Septimus Pope, the new curate of Barham, was directed to live in Barham because the glebe house belonging to the parish of Bishopsbourne with Barham was occupied by the cm ate of Bishopsbourne. 14 Being so close at hand to Barham, it is not surprising to find that Oxenden frequently signed the Barham registers as officiating minister from 21st December, 1828. By an Order in Council dated 20th November, 1845, the parish of Barham, which until then had ranked as a chapelry to Bishopsboume, was separated from that parish and became a living in itself, to the Perpetual Curacy of which, void by the resignation of the Rt. Rev. George, D.D., Bishop of Rochester, the last incumbent, the Rev. Charles Oxenden, B.A., was licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the patron, on 13th January, 1846. 15 He was instituted the same day. 16 The Order is interesting as showing that the incumbency of the combined parishes was one of the plums of the church, certainly in Kent, being of the nett annual value of £1,277 12s. Od., of which Barham, the chapelry, accounted for £810 2s. Od. This in itself was well above the average, which seems to have been around £350 - £400. High as the total 'was, being about the same as that of St. 10 Ibid., 5, 154-5. 11 Ordination Papers, 1823, Lambeth Pal. Lib. MSS. 12 J.A. Venn (ed.), Alumni Cantabridgienses (Cambridge U.P., 1951), Pt. ii, IV, 615. 13 The rector from 1828 to 1846 was the Hon. George Murray, Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Worcester, a nephew of the fourth Duke of Atholl and ancestor of the tenth and present duke. 14 Curates' Licences, 1820-32, Canterbury Cathedral Archives, F/C2; id., 1833-41, F/C3; id., 1841-48, F/C4. 1 • Act Book of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1839-49, Lambeth Pal. Lib. MSS., VBl/16. 16 Visitation Returns, Barham, 1872, Lambeth Pal. Lib. MSS., VG3/4a. 63 PHILIP H. BLAKE Martin's-in-the-Fields, London, it was well under that of Eastchurch, in the Isle of Sheppey, the value of which was £1,724 per annum, getting towards, but still some way below, that of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, easily the highest in London at £2,200 per annum. 17 That the new perpetual curacy should be worth nearly twice as much as the old but now separate rectory of Bishopsbourne was in the eyes of the archbishop a case of the tail wagging the dog, so that, to redress the balance and at the same time preserve the seniority of the rectory. his scheme of separation included the transfer from Barham to the rectory of Bishopsbourne of the rent charges on 864½ acres of land in Barham, amounting to £224 1 ls. Od. , which brought Bishopsboume up to £692 ls. Od. per annum and reduced Barham to £585 1 ls. Od. although the population of Barham (according to the 1841 census) was 1151 and that of Bishopsbourne 354. The archbishop's scheme also provided for a reapportionment of the First Fruits and Tenths, which for the combined parishes amounted to £35 19s. 3d. per annum and £3 19s. lld. per annum, respectively, the result of which was that £17 19s. 6d. was apportioned to Barham for First Fruits and £119s. lld. for Tenths. The principal estates upon which the rent charges were transferred were 296 acres owned by the Marchioness Conyngham and occupied by Robert Gardner, being apparently Heart's Delight Farm in whole or in part, and 375½ acres owned by the Dover Harbour Trustees and occupied by John Sankey, being the Digges Place estate. No Dering manorial lands were involved in the transfer. From the foregoing it will be seen that Charles Oxenden, on being licensed to the new perpetual curacy of Barham, was to enjoy a stipend not far short of £600 per annum and this situation was to prevail until by an Order in Council dated 27th August, 1860, and made under the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act, 1840, and the Augmentation of Benefices Act 1854, the rent charges on the Digges Place estate, worth £86 19s. 8d. and those on lands (Gore Field and Ileden Field) owned by Sir Henry Oxenden and occupied by Peter Chandler, worth £9 3s. 6d. both at 1846 values, were returned to Barham, which reduced the annual value of the rectory of Bishopsbourne to £595 17s. 10d. at 1846 values and increased that of the perpetual curacy of Barham to £681 14s. 2d. at the same values, but in reality to probably somewhat in excess of £700 in 11 Clergy List, 1847 (London, C. Cox, 1847). For local comparison parishes next to Barham. with their nett annual values, were Kingston. £500; Adisham with Staple, £952; Nonington with Womenswold, £236; Sibertswold with Coldred, £255; Wootton, £239; Denton, £169; Elham, £390; and Upper Hardres with Stelling, £589, an average of £416. 64 CHARLES OXENDEN 1860, since the values of the rent charges then transferred had risen by that time by £5 lls. 7d. and £0 2s. ld. respectively. The increase in the stipend was to continue over the next twelve years, so that Oxenden was able to report on 22nd September, 1872, that his gross income from tithes and hops, there being no other income, was £882 5s. Od. 18 the purchasing power of which would have been the equivalent to not less than £12,250 at the present day. By contrast the present income of the rector rising out of a benefice endowment capital (£19,416.71) is only £607.90 per annum, though this sum is considerably augmented out of the Canterbury Diocesan Stipend Fund on the direction of the diocesan authorities and is paid from the Church Commissioners' office. 19 Nevertheless, the purchasing power of the grand total bears no comparison with that of the stipend of 100 years ago, the source of which is now represented by the sum of £19,265 3s. 3d. out of the total capital of £19,416 14s. 2d., made up of £120 17s. 2d. taken over by the Church Commissioners from the Governors of Queen Anne's Bounty in 1948 and £19,144 6s. ld. being compensation by the Government under the provisions of the Tithe Act, 1936, for the compulsory redemption of the tithe rent charge belonging to the benefice. 20 On the separation of the parishes provision for the accommodation of the new incumbent of Barham became necessary, since the curates in charge of the parish had never had an 'official' residence, nor, indeed, does there appear to have been any glebe upon which to build one, judging from the fact that when the parsonage house was built it was upon land that in September 1842, did not belong to the church, but to Sir Frederick Mulcaster, K.C.H., of Charlton Park, and was occupied and under cultivation by one John Harvey.21 Sir Frederick died on 28th January, 1846, and either before that date, or very shortly after it, the land must have been acquired, because in a commission dated 26th December of the same year and addressed to the Rev. Thomas Harrison, incumbent of Nonington with Womenswold, and the Rev. George Crespigny La Motte, rector of Denton, the archbishop stated that the Rev. Charles Oxenden had asked for his consent to build a parsonage house 'upon the glebe of the said benefice' and required them to report upon, inter alia, the condition of the buildings on the glebe. 22 . 18 Loe. cit. in note 16. 1• Ex. info., the Church Commissioners, letter ref. FIN(A/cs)6/15 DUH, 16th March, 1977. '0 id., letter ref. FIN(A/cs)6/15/sd, 3rd May, 1977. 21 Tithe Awards, Barham, 19 September, 1842, Cant. Cath. Arch. T0/84A. " Plant, etc., of proposed parsonage, Barham, 1846, Cant. Dioc. Registry. 65 PHILIP H. BLAKE In their report, dated 6th March, 1847, Messrs. Harrison and La Motte certified that the only building belonging to the living was a large tithe barn in a neglected state, which had since been disposed of by consent of the archbishop and subsequently taken down, the sum realised being £55. They also found that the Rev. Charles Oxenden had received £113 from the former incumbent for dilapidations on the barn and that this money and the £55 were available for putting towards the cost of the glebe house. Accompanying the archbishop's commission and the subsequent report are the plans and specifications dated 10th December, 1846, by John Whichcord (1790 - 1860, John Whichcord and Son, Architects, Maidstone) for a house that he estimated could be built for £1,368. These plans must already have received Oxenden's general approval because the house as built accorded with them, except that during construction they were modified to increase the length of the dining-room and to transfer a cellar to another place to fill a gap in the basement plan. The only doubtful modification was to the service wing, where two rooms were added over what was the pantry and housekeeper's room, which lie opposite the kitchen. The construction of the house was to be of flint with brick quoins to the angles, arches and jambs of doors and windows, the sills to be of York stone; all the internal walls and the chimney stacks were to be of brick. Except for minor alterations the house as it stands today remains as it was built. At present values the 1847 estimate for construction would have been around £25,000, but it is safe to say that in practice it would take more like double that sum to built it now. It remained the glebe house of the rectors of Barham until it was sold on 10th November, 1953, to the Misses J. and R.M. Oldacres, 23 of whom the latter still resides there. In 1849 the new parsonage house was finished, 24 and in it Oxenden set himself up with a housekeeper, housemaid, cook and butler. 25 It might be thought that he would have been well pleased with his new residence, and perhaps he was, because it was a good house in a fine situation, but it was far from the centre of the parish, not particularly near the church and village and some distance from the neighbouring hamlet of Derringstone in the parish. It was, therefore, not only somewhat inconveniently situated for the incumbent himself, but was out of touch to most of the parishoners. 23 Ex. info., the Church Commissioners, letter ref. Records 6/15/RM, 4th April, 1977. 2• Visitation Returns, Barham, 1864, Lambeth Pal. Lib. MSS VG3/3a. 25 Census Returns, Barham, 1851, PRO, H0107/1626. 66 CHARLES OXENDEN Such considerations must soon have become apparent to Oxenden because within four years of its completion he had moved out and had represented to the archbishop that he was 'desirous to reside in a house belonging to Mrs. Field occupied by (himself) situate in the parish'. Permission to remain in Mrs. Field's house was accordingly granted to him by licence dated 3rd May, 1853, subject to his 'keeping the Glebe house in good and sufficient repair.'26 In 1861 he was still living with two servants in the same house, which was in Barham Street and is now known as Yew Tree Cottage, as near as one can judge from the fact that it was immediately next to the residence of Elizabeth Graham27 (widow of his uncle, the Rev. Charles Clark Graham, Vicar of Petham and Waltham), which is known to have been the present Old House. How much longer Oxenden remained there has not been ascertained, but by 1871 he had moved to a house in Derringstone beside the Barham brickfield.28 Two houses answer to this description, one called Sydney House at the south corner of the present Brickfield Lane and the other, the Red House, at the north corner. Since Oxenden's house in 1871 was owned by one Oliver Boyd and since the deeds of Sydney House, which go back beyond that date, do not record an owner of that name, it would appear that it was to the Red House that Oxenden went. Moreover, the census shows that the premises he occupied with his two servants had a common boundary with the Barham brickfield. 30 Unfortunately, the point cannot be further verified because the only record of the Red House ownership that now exists is the Land Registry certificate. The Red House was considerably larger than his previous residence, but by no means so well sited for the church and village, though he optimistically described it as being 'a more convenient house (than the rectory) under 600 yards from the church'29 - perhaps it was, but only by a short cut across the fields! It was probably for this house30 that he obtained his last licence for non-residence, valid for two years, on 1st January, 1874. In it the archbishop recites that Oxenden wished 'to reside in a house belonging to Oliver Boyd, Esq., now occupied by yourself situate in the parish and nearer the church of Barham and being more convenient for your residence and more central for the population than the Glebe House'. 31 It was here that the rector died less than three months later. 2• Licences for Non-Residence, Cant. Cath. Arch., F/2. 27 Census Returns, Barham, 1861, PRO, RG9/518. 2• id., 1871, PRO, RGl0/965. 29 foe. cit. in note 16. 30 toe. cit. in note 28, where Oxenden's house is lot 51 and the brickfield is lot 52. " Register of Licences for Non-Residence, 1863-1878, Cant. Cath. Arch. F{N2. 67 PHILIP H. BLAKE Apart from his removal of residence and the increase in his stipend in 1860 there was to be no change in Oxenden's circumstances as incumbent until 1867, when, on 14th February of that year, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, acting under the District Church Tithes Act, 1865, whereby any church could be declared a rectory or vicarage if the tithes or rent charges in the parish belonged to the incumbent, declared Barham to be a rectory.32 Thus the incumbent was henceforth to be rector, and Oxenden first signs the Barham registers (burials) as such on 22nd February, 1867. That the change in status, though bestowing a greater dignity upon the incumbent, was otherwise little more than a formality is seen by the fact that three and a half years previously, on 30th July, 1863, the Rev. Charles Oxenden had been appointed Rural Dean of Bridge in succession to the Rev. C.T. Plumptre, Rector of Wickhambreux, an appointment that was confirmed by Archbishop Tait on 12th April, 1869.33 He was the last to hold that office, which he did until the rural deanery was divided. Exactly when this division was made has not been found at either Canterbury or Lambeth, but it probably took place about the beginning of 1873, since Oxenden is mentioned as Rural Dean of Bridge on 7th October, 1872, and had been succeeded before May, 1873, by Canon Charles Waldegrave Sandford, Rector of Bishopsbourne, and the Rev. James Hughes Hallett, Rector of Bircholt and Vicar of Waltham with Petham, who are mentioned as Rural Deans of East Bridge and West Bridge respectively. l4 After twenty months as rector Oxenden was appointed an honorary Canon of Canterbury on 16th October, 1868/5 but he lived for just over five years to enjoy his new dignity. He last signed the Barham registers (burials) on 20th November, 1873, and died on 17th March, 1874. He was buried at Barham on 23rd March following, nearly opposite the west end of the church, on the west side of the path leading from the south entrance of the churchyard to the west and north doors of the church. Over the grave is laid a large, slightly convex stone with the following inscription: 'In memory of/ the Revd/Charles Oxenden/fourth son of Sir Henry Oxenden, Bart./ for 28 years first rector of/the separate living of Barham and/ Honorary Canon of Canterbury Cathedral./He departed this life/on 32 Declaration that Barham Church be deemed a rectory, 14 Feb., 1867, Cant. Dioc. Reg. 33 Act Book of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1859-71, Lambeth Pal. Lib. MSS. VBl/18, 172 354. >• Canterbury Archdeaconry, Register of Inductions, June 1829 - October 1895 Cant. Dioc. Reg. 35 Op. cit., in note 17, 343. 68 CHARLES OXENDEN the 17th day of March, 1874/in the 74th year of his age'. Apart from the subject of his calling, the abiding interest of Oxenden 's life was medicine and the health of the poor. He had studied medicine, though whether systematically, under some qualified teacher, or informally through reading and self-instruction, has not been revealed, but his knowledge became sufficiently obvious in his own parish and Poor Law district, the Bridge Union, as to cause guardians or overseers to apply frequently to him for advice on whether, for instance, persons should or should not be given an order for medical attention. In his later twenties, he became a governor of the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, but here again it is not known whether this distinction was the cause or effect of his interest in medicine. It seems possible, however, that his medical studies preceded his appointment and followed his ordination, for it will have been noticed that between 1824, when he became a priest, and 1828 when he went to Bishopsbourne as curate, he held no clerical appointment, and it was about the time of the latter date that he became a hospital governor. Whatever the basis and extent of his medical qualifications they gave him the knowledge to compile his Statistical Tables of the Principal Provincial Hospitals in England, which he published in 1830. No copy of this has been traced, but elements of it can be found in a paper on Statistics of English Hospitals in the British Medical Almanack for 1836,36 where it is stated that Oxenden 'deserves the thanks of all who desire to see the English hospitals judiciously administered'. The returns from 27 provincial hospitals were arranged in a 'very extensive lucid table', and it was the first attempt 'made by a competent person' to present a statistical view of the English hospitals. The same journal said the following year that Oxenden's chart 'constituted an era in hospital statistics'. It was the same year, 1837, that the Almanack printed an editorial note on the importance of post-mortem examinations and the need for more of them in English hospitals and infirmaries. It introduced observations by Oxenden on a statistical table he drew up from returns from fourteen hospitals in answer to ten questions he put to them on their practice and views concerning such examinations. The questions were occasioned by an incident in the Kent and Canterbury Hospital in 1825 in which a servant girl entered a room where a body had not been 'adjusted' after an extensive postmortem examination and the sight gave the girl hysterics. In addition, the commotion excited the interest of other patients, who scaled the windows to see what was going on. Through the indis- ,. Wm. Farr (ed.), op. cit., 1836, 114, and id., 1837, 146. 69 PHILIP H. BLAKE creet talk of one or two well-intentioned governors of the hospital the opinion gained ground outside that bodies ought not to be cut up after death and certainly not without the permission of the next of kin or friends and that the hospital was deserving of considerable criticism. Oxenden, who held the contrary view, then determined to obtain evidence of the general practice, and accordingly circulated hospitals for information. He found that there were no particular rules regarding post-mortem examinations, that they were held in most fatal cases, that the consent of friends was not generally sought, a course to which there was very rarely any objection, and that they virtually never caused repugnance to admission to hospital. The effect of Oxenden's move was to acquit the medical officers of the hospital in the public eyes of any breach of professional or institutional regulations. 37 This incident had for Oxenden more than a public or professional interest, for the consulting physician to the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, Dr. John McDivitt, was his friend and appears to have lived with him towards the end of his life at Bishopsbourne rectory. He was a native of Londonderry, Northern Ireland, and graduated M.D. at Glasgow University on 21st April, 1834. He had been appointed to the Canterbury hospital by 1835 and must have been a man of considerable brilliance, for he soon rose to this senior position. Bishop Oxenden, younger brother of Charles, described him as 'a very clever man, one of the cleverest that I ever came across'. 38 In passing, it is interesting to note in these days, when the attempt is being made to make Latin a thing of the past, that a candidate for the Glasgow M.D. in medicine had formerly to write a commentary on an aphorism of Hippocrates and another on a case of disease propounded to him by the examiners, both in Latin! Dr. McDivitt took a particular interest in the bishop since it was considered that he suffered from tuberculosis. However, the bishop lived to be 83, whereas the doctor died of the disease at Bishopsbourne rectory on 14th December, 1839, in his 31st year and was buried in the churchyard there six days later. A memorial tablet to him on the north wall of the church near the door was placed there by the Rev. Charles Oxenden,39 but his abiding memorial is 37 ibid., 145 et seq. 38 Rt. Rev. Ashton Oxenden, D.D., The History of My Life (London, Longmans, Green & Co., 1891), 59. 39 The inscription is in Latin, but may be translated as follows: A friend, Charles Oxenden, set up this monument to his deceased friend John McDivitt, M.D., an Irishman and a man of great worth, endowed with the best of good qualities, faithful, devout, affectionate, yet still a man. He died on the 14th day of December in the 70 CHARLES OXENDEN his detailed account of the work of the Kent and Canterbury Hospital from its opening on 26th April, 1793, to 1838. Among some interesting observations, he remarks that 'a few years since, when the Rev. Charles Oxenden was engaged in procuring materials for his well-contrived, elaborate, and, in the highest degree, useful "Statistical Tables of the Hospitals", he found that at one large provincial hospital all the out-patients dead were returned as cured. His attention was drawn to the point by remarking that, according to their "Annual Reports", not one of their out-patients had died. Truly, a public that would take in and digest this might be expected to swallow anything'. 40 In 1838 Oxenden returned to the question of hospital administration with the printing of a Statistical Return of County Infirmaries. Unfortunately, as in the case of the 1830 report, no copy of it has come to light despite diligent research. However, aspects of both reports are contained in facts and figures produced in a paper in the form of a letter to the editor entitled Remarks on Hospital Medical Staffs that he contributed to the Medical Almanack for 1839. In this he first shows, in two important tables, the vast disparities in the medical staffing of twenty general provincial hospitals and infirmaries. In 1830 'four medical officers had the care of ninety-nine beds at Leicester, of one hundred beds at Northampton and of one hundred and seventy beds at Gloucester; the same number of officers were appointed at Hereford to attend upon fifty-two beds and at Bury upon fifty only. Again, while six medical officers were deemed ample for one hundred and five beds at Norwich, for one hundred and seven at Salisbury, for one hundred and twenty-four at Leeds, and for about one hundred and fifty at Shrewsbury; six were also required for the charge of eighty-five beds at Sheffield, of seventy-nine at Derby, of sixty-five at Canterbury and of sixty-two at Bath (General Hospital). 'From these few examples, out of many which might be adduced, it will at once be seen that there is no system whatever in the proportioning of medical staffs throughout the provinces - that they have been the creatures of chance, originally determined, in all probability, by a reference to the number of resident practitioners in the town at the period of institution, without any regard to their year of salvation 1839 and in the thirty-first year of his life in the most blessed faith of the Gospel. ' 0 John McDivitt, M.D., Statistics of the Kent and Canterbury Hospital in W. Farr (ed.), op. cit., 1839, p. 179 et seq., esp. p. 191. Photocopies of McDivitt's paper are at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital and the Canterbury Public Library. The destruction of the hospital archives in World War II makes the record of unique value. 71 PHILIP H. BLAKE quantum of labour, or to their qualifications for Office'. He goes on to point out that in 1793 the governors of the Kent and Canterbury Hospital nominated two physicians and six surgeons, a house surgeon and a superintending apothecary, but in their third year admitted no more than 121 in-patients and 135 out-patients. As a suitable staffing basis that could be modified to suit special circumstances, Oxenden proposed a scale ranging from two physicians, two surgeons and one house surgeon for a hospital of 76 - 125 beds to four physicians, four surgeons, one house surgeon and one house apothecary for one of 176 - 200 beds, and so on. He believed that this scale would lead generally to a reduction in staffing. In this connection, it must be remembered that medical staff at that time was not paid, and Oxenden supported this course on the ground that the generality of hospitals could not afford to provide adequate remuneration. On the other hand, he did not doubt that 'if £200 p.a. could be spared for each physician and £100 for each surgeon . . . the practice of the smaller hospitals would become much improved ... and the scale of hospital talent would progressively rise'.• 1 Nevertheless, the position was to remain unchanged for more than a century. Oxenden's zeal in drawing attention, by means of his statistical commentaries, to anomalies and shortcomings in hospital administration certainly had the wholehearted approval of the Medical Almanack, which may well ha\'€ been expressing a generally held opinion when it stated in an editorial in 1839 that the Rev. Charles Oxenden had 'contributed more than any other person to the improvement of the county hospitals'. 42 The most important practical result, certainly locally, of Oxenden's interest in medicine and the health of the poor, and the most immediately successful, was his creation of the Barham Downs Medical Provident Society, which came into being on 1st October, 1834. Oxenden was evidently taking the most immediate advantage of the Friendly Societies Act of that year, whereby friendly societies were freely permitted to establish themselves upon such conditions and with such rates as they might choose. The object of Oxenden's society was to enable the labouring classes to obtain in common with their richer neighbours, the best medical advice that could be obtained locally. This was to be done by paying a small sum every quarter to the society, which, in return, would provide the medical man and assistance. A feature of the society, or club, was that members could choose any local medical man they wished, provided 41 Wm. Farr (ed.), op. cit., 1839, 103 . ., Wm. Farr, Loe. cit., 11. 72 CHARLES OXENDEN he lived within seven miles, and through their regular subscriptions they would be in no dread of having to meet a large bill. Moreover, by their own exertions, they would become independent of medical relief from a parish doctor and thus avoid the taunt of 'pauper'. On the other side of the picture, no person was entitled to medical attendance unless his regular payment had been duly made and any member guilty of drunkenness whilst under medical treatment was to be dismissed, as also such as were convicted of felony or any penal misdemeanour. The persons eligible for membership of the club were farm servants, journeymen apprentices, labourers, single women and widows, with their respective families, but no domestic servant receiving more than £8 yearly wages and no journeymen or labourers receiving 21s. weekly wages, or whose wages, with those of their children over 16 years old, amounted to over 28s. a week could join. The quarterly subscription varied according to occupation or condition from ls. to 6s., but midwifery was extra and was charged at 7s. 6d. per case. 43 So successful was this new society that at the end of its first quarter it encompassed a district of thirty rural parishes and the number of benefitting members was 2,285.44 It appears that no attempt was made to extend the interests of the society over a wider area, because at the end of twenty years it was the same size, except that it had cast off three parishes and its numbers had accordingly fallen to 2,029, but presumably it was this steadiness in its performance as well as the personal distinction of its creator and manager that led to Oxenden 's being called to give evidence before the Parliamentary Select Committee on Medical Relief at its meeting on 9th June, 1854. What he said revealed a man of liberal and, for the time, even advanced views, chief among which was his advocacy of free medical attendance for all the working classes. He was conscious, too, of the important fact that as things stood the absence of medical attendance when it was most needed often resulted in the patient's being ill for a long time and consequently a burden upon the parish, and if the patient died his family became an even greater burden, but it was most important 43 The charges rose somewhat between 1834 and 1854. For those of the opening year, 1834, see Denis Phelan, A Statistical Inquiry into the Present State of the Medical Charities of Ireland (Dublin, Hodges and Smith, 1835), 219 footnote. and for the later figures see the Report from the Select Committee on Medical Relief (British Parliamentary Papers: Medical Health 8. Sessions 1854-62, I.U.P.). Appendix 2, p. 257. " For the names of the parishes and much detailed information on membership and expenditure see Phelan, Loe. cit., and the Report cited in the preceeding note, p. 256. 73 PHILIP H. BLAKE that medical relief should be extended 'very far beyond the mere poor, so as to prevent persons from becoming poor'. The doctor's bill was the bill that broke down the labouring man. The system he suggested seemed perfectly easy to carry out. In his view, it was simply a matter of pounds, shillings and pence and, though more expensive than the system then existing, it would be tenfold more valuable. All the working classes would be included in Oxenden's scheme, except persons having real or personal property of a certain amount or an income of a certain amount. He would give free medical aid to all persons with an income of not more than 25s. a week, including the earnings of the whole family. Such persons would be entitled to receive treatment either at the district dispensary or at home, according to the nature of the sickness. Exceptions would be those who carried on by themselves or resident family a reputed trade or shop business or were owners of real, personal or other property of the estimated annual value of £20, or who occupied a house or land of the annual value of £10; also the members of any family whose united income was 25s. a week and single persons earning more than 10s. weekly. Any member not requiring medical assistance during the year would receive a refund of a quarter of his yearly subscription, but anyone who neglected to pay his subscription on the regular day would receive no help from the club that year. Virtually the whole total of the subscriptions, not much less than £400 annually, was divided among the society's five medical officers, and although that was all they received they were perfectly satisfied. Medical expenditure by the poor-law was round £260 annually, but Oxenden's observation on this point was: 'We are doing a great deal more than the union for the poor', It was Oxenden's opinion that an important result of his proposal would be that all those self-supporting institutions then maintained for themselves, aided by contributions from their richer neighbours, would to a great extent very soon cease. He believed that many of his members were hurting themselves very much financially in other respects by continuing their contributions, and in answer to a specific question he stated emphatically that he did not think it better to maintain an independent club than to make the poor generally depend upon public relief. The independence of the labourer would be no more broken down by dependence on the public purse for medical attention than it was by obtaining hospital assistance, since a man did not consider himself a pauper because he was an out-patient or an in-patient of a hospital. As to the payment of medical men under his scheme, Oxenden looked upon this as a national act chargeable upon the national 74 CHARLES OXENDEN taxes and not upon the local rates. He did not see that a medical man could possibly undertake every kind of attendance at a salary of less than £5 per 100 people in the rural areas, and in his Barham Downs district, with a population of upwards of 12,000 this would amount to £600. Yet, in 1853 relief paid out was only £258 against an expenditure of £586, including that incurred by the Board of Guardians. 45 How long Oxenden 's provident society remained in existence and why and how it was disbanded have not been discovered and may never be; it was not registered with the Register of Friendly Societies and, consequently, the returns required to be made to the registrar by the registered societies every five years do not exist for it. Nevertheless, its success was sufficiently pronounced to gain for it a national reputation sufficiently great to warrant calling its founder and manager to give evidence before a parliamentary committee on medical relief. It is safe to say, however, that if Oxenden had foreseen what his modest suggestion for a national medical service was to lead to, he would have been fairly staggered, and not only at the mere matter of pounds, shillings and pence. It seems that Canon Oxenden has now no living descendants. He married in June 1823, Elizabeth Catherine, daughter of the Rev. George Holcombe, D.D., Rector of East and West Leake, Notts., Hon. Canon of Westminister (he had been an Hon. Canon of Canterbury, 1815-22, though he held no living in the diocese) and for a short time chaplain to George, Prince of Wales. By her, who was buried on 4th June, 1829, at Bishopsbourne from the rectory, where she had died on the previous 29th May, aged 36,4" he had a son and a daughter, of whom the daughter, Charlotte Georgiana, married in 1850 Lt. Gen. Sir Henry Edwin Weare, K.C.B., of the Hampton Bishop family, who died in 1898 and by whom she had one son, Henry Oxenden Weare, who began life as an ensign in the 99th Regiment, and three daughters, but all these children seem to have died unmarried. The son, Col. Charles Vernon Oxenden, who died in the lifetime of his father, and was buried beside him, 47 had one daughter that married, Flora Caroline, her husband being Col. Patrick FitzGerald Gallwey, R.A., who died on 20th May, 1903, and was burried at Richmond, Surrey, having had a son, Nigel 45 Evidence of Rev. Charles Oxenden in the Report from the Select Committee on Medical Relief cited in note 43, pp. 113-23. •• If any memorial stone was put over the grave it seems to have disappeared. 47 A large flat stone, the same as his father's, bears the following inscription: 'In memory of/Colonel/Charles Vernon Oxenden/Rifle Brigade PCO/only son of/the Revd. Charles Oxenden/Rector of this parish/He was born October 31st 1826/and died April 26th 1868/aged 41 years.' He was buried 1st May following. 75 PHILIP H. BLAKE Vernon, born in 1895, who the peerages imply, probably wrongly, was still living up to around 1955, when his name disappears. Nothing further of him has come to light nor do authorities on the Gallwey family know anything of him more than that such indications as there are suggest that he died before his father. 48 The • strongest evidence in that direction is his father's will, in which he leaves all his landed property, life insurance and securities to two unmarried sisters and makes a nephew his executor and residuary legatee. 49 Apart from the Statistical Tables and the articles in Farr's Medical Almanack, the only work known to have come from Oxenden's hand was his Lent Sermons on the Seven Penitential Psalms, which appeared in 1838 and ran to 189 pages. so The Barham Tracts and the Prayer for my Church and my Parish, which have been attributed to him, were, in fact, the work of his brother Ashton. ••Lt.Col. H.D. Gallwey, editor, Irish Genealogist, and Sir Henry Blackall, Q.C., author of The Gallweys of Munster in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, esp. Vol. XXIII, No. 218, July-December, 1968, 172-3. •• Will of Col. P.F. Gallwey, 1903; Land Commission, Dublin. so Canterbury, H. Ward, 1838. 76