List of apothecaries

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This article details some individual Apothecaries. For general information and research guidance, see the main Apothecary article.

Arthur Fitzgibbon

Medals of the British army, and how they were won By Thomas Carter Published by Groombridge, 1861, states:

"The youngest VC recipient is generally regarded as Hospital Apprentice Arthur Fitzgibbon (15 years and 3 months), Indian Medical Establishment."

The following information, collected from various sources, some of which give conflicting personal details, include his citation in The London Gazette (issue 22538 dated 13 Aug 1861, published 13 Aug 1861) for the action in the 2nd China War of 1860. He was in the Bengal SMD.

ARTHUR FITZGIBBON

Hospital Apprentice, Indian Medical Establishment; attached 67th Regiment

Born: 13 May 1845, Gujarat, India Died: 7 March 1883, Delhi, India

Citation: For having behaved with great coolness and courage at the capture of the North Taku Fort [near Tientsin, China], on the 21st of August, 1860. On the morning of that day he accompanied a wing of the 67th Regiment, when it took up a position within 500 yards of the Fort. Having quitted cover, he proceeded, under a very heavy fire, to attend to a Dhoolie-bearer, whose wound he had been directed to bind up; and, while the Regiment was advancing under the Enemy's fire, he ran across the open to attend to another wounded man, in doing which he was himself severely wounded.

The Wellcome Library (London) has some documents, including his baptism in 1845 at Almorah (NW India) under the name Andrew Fitzgibbon.

“The Youngest Victoria Cross: the Award of the Victoria Cross to Andrew Fitzgibbon” (pdf) by PH Starling from Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps March 2008, now an archived page.

Subordinate Medical Department in the Indian Mutiny

London Gazette

The following names of staff mentioned, killed or wounded during theIndian Mutiny are from the books Bulletins and Other State Intelligence part 2, July-December for 1857 and Bulletins and other State Intelligence for the Year 1858 in Four Parts, first published in the London Gazette (published in 1859 and 1860):

• Nominal Roll of Europeans Killed, Wounded, and Missing, in the Army under the command of his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief. Head-Quarters, Camp before Lucknow. March 14, 1858

- 3rd Brigade, Bengal Horse Artillery. Officiating Apothecary R. W. Beale, severe contusion on 8th instant.

- Her Majesty's 23rd Fusiliers. Hospital Apprentice R. Pereira, severe contusion

• List of Europeans Killed by the hands of Rebels, as per Return furnished by the Magistrate of Delhi, between May 11 and October 24, 1857

- Mr. T. Corbet, Sub. Medical Department, Delhi.

• Return of Killed and Wounded of the 2nd Brigade Nerbudda Field Force during the Siege and Attack of Rathghur. (Bombay Presidency, around March 1858)

- 1st Troop Horse Artillery. Assistant Apothecary W. Conway, wounded dangerously, ball through head

• Benares, June 1857 Killed, One apothecary, Her Majesty’s 10th, murdered by 37th [N.I.] men (Vol 2,1857, report commences page 1616, death listed page 1620)

• Benares 4 June 1857 HM 10th Regiment of Foot: Killed: Hospital Apprentice Edwin Courtenay Jackson, gunshot wounds, head, hip, and thigh; killed while proceeding with hospital supplies to the scene of action (Vol 2,1857, p1622).

• Oude Irregular Force: Apothecary Thompson is mentioned in the following reports:

No. 2. General Orders by the Governor-General of India in Council (Fort William December 5, 1857) (No 1,543.) (report commences page 119, mention page 123) THE Governor-General in Council has received from Brigadier Inglis, of Her Majesty s 32nd Regiment, lately commanding the garrison in Lucknow, the subjoined report of the defence of the Residency in that city, from the first- threatened attack upon it on the 29th of June to the arrival of the force under Major-General Sir J. Outram GCB, and the lamented Major-General Sir H. Havelock KCB on the 25th of September.

"The medical officers of the garrison are well entitled to the cordial thanks of the Government of India. The attention, skill, and energy, evinced by...., and of Mr. Apothecary Thompson, are spoken of in high terms by Brigadier Inglis."

No. 3. Brigadier Inglis, Commanding Garrison of Lucknow. to the Secretary to the Government, Military Department, Calcutta. (Lucknow. September 26, 1857) (report commences page 127, mention page 144)

"I beg particularly to call the attention of the Government, of India to the untiring industry, the extreme devotion, and the great skill which have been evinced by Surgeons ....and by Mr. Apothecary Thompson—in the discharge of their onerous and most important duties."

• Transferred to the Medical College Hospital, from Allahabad, as sick and wounded. (Along with many from the 1st Madras Fusiliers, possibly around October 1857)

- Assistant-Apothecary J. C. Ellis

- Hospital Apprentice John Volkers.

• Numerical Return of Killed and Wounded of the Troops composing the Garrison of Lucknow, from the 25th of September, 1857, to the 9th of November, 1857, under Brigadier J. Inglis. Commanding. Lucknow, November 12, 1857 - One hospital apprentice of H.M.'s 32nd Regiment, mortally wounded, since dead, is not included in the above.

• From the Nominal Roll of Casualties in Brigadier Berkeley's Field Force on the 17th July, 1858. Camp, Soraon, July 19, 1858. Assistant Apothecary George Wade, Royal Horse Artillery, killed by round shot.

Other

• Subordinate Medical Department staff are listed in the article "The First Bengal European Fusiliiers in the Delhi Campaign" from Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine Volume 83, January-June 1858, page 137 Google Books

Names from other sources

• From Stephen Lewis's Soldiers Memorials, Graves in India, letter M. Grave at Quetta - "Sacred to the memory of Alfred Fitzherbert Marshall. Extra Assistant Steward 3rd Light Cavalry. 2nd son of Charles Marshall, Apothecary Lunatic Asylum Calcutta who departed this life on the 6th day of August 1859 aged 22 years and 2 days, deeply lamented by his parents. He served in the late Volunteer Cavalry throughout the Mutiny and was wounded at Lucknow when proceeding to the relief of that Garrison with the late General Havelock's force.”

• Murder of Apothecary Healy (sometimes spelt Healey) by tribesmen, while travelling to his unit (1850). See Allen's Indian Mail page 281, also p313, p351 and Medical Times, Jan-June 1850 p394.

• Apothecary Daly (1821) and Assistant Apothecary Everard (1824) charged with being drunk while treating patients, from a book about Law in India, published 1825 (page 597). The Daly court martial is also mentioned in this link (page 497).

• Senior Assistant Apothecary, John Barnes, attached to the garrison hospital of Cannamore {Madras Presidency] was found guilty of having embezzled stores in 1832 and was sentenced to be dismissed from the service of the Honourable East India Company. The Commander in Chief considered the sentence insufficient “as the value of the drugs stolen may frequently exceed the value of the situation lost.” London Medical and Surgical Journal Volume 4 1834 page 284

• Assistant Apothecary Burgess murders Assistant Apothecary O’Brien in 1840 at Kamptee (Madras Presidency) and is sentenced to be hanged, but his sentence is commuted into “Transportation beyond the seas” (Asiatic journal 1841, page 234). Note at least some convicts were sent to Australia.

• Not all reports about Apothecaries were good (Kurratchee (Karachi), Bombay Presidency 1840’s) The Westminster Review Published 1846, page 252

• In Singapore in November 1826, there was a case of attempted poisoning when a Hospital Apprentice, James Bagley, was caught in the act of putting something poisonous into the food of his fellow apprentice, John Leicester, after they had a quarrel. “Forensic Medicine in Early Singapore Part I 1819-1839” by YK Lee Singapore Medical Journal 1974 Mar 15(1) p 84-90

• This link gives the names of several hospital apprentices who were dismissed, together with some appointed in Bengal 1839

• "The case of Assistant Apothecary F D’Sylva" -court martial in Burmah. The Madras Monthly Journal of Medical Science, Volume 3, January-June 1871, page 212