Laburnum Terrace

Edward Long, surgeon of 22 Gloucester Road, Thornbury

In the 1871 census, the house was occupied by the Long family:

Name	Status	M	Age	Occupation	Birth Place
Edward Long	Head	M	38	Surgeon (Kings College)	Berkeley
Elizabeth Long	Wife	M	37		Rushy
Emma Day	Lodger	U	22	Housemaid	Oldbury
Thomas Stinchcombe	Lodger	U	16	Errand Boy	Grovesend
Frederick Johnson	Lodger	U	20	Groom	Kilpeck, Herefordshire

Edward had been born in Ham near Berkeley in 1833, the son of George Long, a gentleman and his wife, Margaret Phillips (nee Kingscote).   The 1841 census shows that George was a steward in Ham, presumably for the Berkeley Estate.  Curiously, Edward is not living at home.  He is aged 8, living in nearby Clapton near Bevington in the home of Mary Adams, a farmer.  His older brother, Frederick, is also there.

Edward must have been a bright boy.  By the 1851 census, he had become an apprentice surgeon to Joseph Hand, a surgeon, living at 22 Duke Street, Hanover Square, London.

We did not know anything about the training of a surgeon in the Victorian era and we were suspicious that Dr Long claimed to have been a student at Kings College but was apparently learning the job of surgeon by following another surgeon about!  The King's College London website provided some clarification; "until the mid nineteenth century there were three types of student attending the medical school, the surgeons' apprentices and dressers, dressers who had served an apprenticeship elsewhere and completing their training with a particular surgeon, and pupils, who were not attached to any particular surgeon".  We have looked at the 1861 census for Joseph Hands (his name seems to have the plural in most records) and found that Mr Hands had an impressive set of letters after his name FRCS LAC - L.  We feel from this that Edward must have been properly apprenticed to a qualified surgeon who lectured at the college.

This was the most usual route for the surgeons or apothecaries destined to work in the provinces, and who wished to practise medicine.  They had to take the examination for the Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of London (MRCS).   A statutory precondition of which was attendance at a London (or other) teaching hospital (in Edward's case of course it was King's College) for five years, under the tutelage of a physician.  It sounds very respectable but a website about Victorian medicine notes that "unfortunately, many of these physicians were more interested in collecting tuition fees than teaching; students were too often left to their own devices, many reduced to idleness, messing about in mortuaries and the pursuit of extra-curricular activities".  Another website is more frank "Such pupils were infamous for their rowdiness."  It is to be hoped that Edward Long was not such a wild student.

Further search of the internet has provided a little background to Edward Long's social position.  It seems that as a surgeon he was distinctly a step down from being a doctor.  A physician or doctor was a gentleman and could expect to be received at his patient's dinner table.  A surgeon's job was more of a manual trade, albeit a craftsman.  A doctor read for a  recognised degree at a traditional University, preferably Oxford or Cambridge.  His parents could afford to pay for his education and training.  It was easier to become a surgeon than a physician because one only had to have enough money to be apprenticed but the pay was much less and in order to make a living a surgeon often had to dispense drugs in a dual role as licensed apothecary. 

On 6 April 1858 Edward married Elizabeth Hickes at Berkeley.  Edward had become a surgeon by now.  Elizabeth was from Berkeley, her parents were John Cox Hickes, a surgeon and his wife, Mary, who were living at Stock House, Stock Lane, Berkeley.  In 1859/60 Edward became Mayor of the Thornbury.

The 1861 census shows Edward and Elizabeth were living in Castle Street, two houses up from the Savings Bank (now Bank Cottage).  It shows Edward was employing an assistant surgeon, Charles F Gill, a widower aged 34 from St Pancras, London.  It was interesting to find that Charles Gill was sacked for being intoxicated in June shortly after this census and he was soon to commit suicide by sticking a lancet in his neck.

A letter printed in the Gazette on 27th December 1924 includes a reference to Edward.  It was sent by Edmund Cullimore. 

“My first recollection of Thornbury was about 1853 to visit Dr Long’s in Castle Street to be vaccinated.  The doctor was very tall and with his head held on one side and jocularly told people he was born with two heads but one dropped off, hence the position of the one left.  He was very affable and clever and fond of a jibe, also good horses and dogs and a keen politician on the Liberal side.  He offered me two half pennies to keep quiet while he operated on my arm.”

He went on to say the doctor was true to his word and gave him the promised money.  Mr Cullimore also mentioned that although he never suffered from small pox in his life, he was unconvinced that this good fortune was caused by the vaccination.

1863 was a bad year for Edward.  He went bankrupt and he had to sell his property.  The sale of this property shows the full extent of his land-holdings.  There was his four bedroom home in Castle Street, where his surgery was also located,  the house immediately adjoining it and the outbuildings including stables and a coach house. He also owned a considerable piece of land behind these houses stretching up to Gloucester Road and down as far as The Coombe at the junction of Church Road and Gloucester Road.

It must have been quite a descent down the social scale from owning such extensive property to renting a house in Gloucester Road.  The Society of Thornbury Folk bulletin (dated October 1955) quotes the Thornbury Guardians' Minutes and refers to the Thornbury Workhouse in the period of the 1860's as follows: "The medical officers were not satisfactory, and  were censured for neglect of patients.  Either as a cause or consequence of this, one of them went bankrupt and his drugs and surgical instruments were sold by auction.  It is difficult to imagine how the poor man got on without them.  Although the Guardians had 'lost all confidence' in him, the Poor Law Board did not consider that his bankruptcy entitled them to dismiss him." 

It is interesting to read in the 1871 census that Dr Long had a groom when he was living at number 22 Gloucester Road.  The present occupants of the house say that Elwyn Pitcher had already told them that a doctor had lived in the house and he had kept his horse in the stables across the road in a building which later became part of Dick Shipp's garage.  The stables seem to have existed even earlier than this time but it is not clear how Elwyn knew all about it as he was not born until 1911 and even his father was only a year old when Edward Long died.  The Pitcher family obviously had long memories!

Tragically, Edward died shortly on 7 February 1874 aged just 40 years.  He is buried in All Saints Churchyard in Stone.  Elizabeth re-married in 4th qtr 1877 when the marriage was registered in the Stroud registration district.  Her husband was Cornelius Tongue, who 29 years older than Elizabeth.  The 1881 census shows Elizabeth and Cornelius living at Trysull, near Wolverhampton.  He was an author, a reporter and landowner.  He seemed to have the nickname of 'Cecil' and specialised in writing about horses.  His published titles include 'Records of the chase and celebrated sportsmen', 'The Fox-hunters Guide', 'The Stud Farm', 'Stable Practice', and 'Hunting Tours'.  All are shown on Amazon as being out of print.  Cornelius died in Trysull in 1884 aged 83 years.

Elizabeth was also shown in the 1881 census as being an authoress, although we failed to find any information about her published works.  She returned to Berkeley after Cornelius's death, and lived with her sister, Mary H Hicks, in Stock House.  Elizabeth died on 9 February 1915 aged 81 years and that she buried with her first husband, Edward Long in his grave in Stone where the gravestone can still be seen.

This page was last updated: 25/06/2008