Dr Peachey – ‘Australian illness’ causes doc’s death
This column by Jonathan Smyth remembers Dr Peachey of Ballyconnell...
Sorry to disappoint our younger readers - ‘Dr Peachey of Ballyconnell’ is not a rap artist. As my neighbour says, ‘that’s not a name you’d find about Tullyvin!’ Mind you, many of his anecdotal tales, although common hearsay, seem to reference Tullyvin a lot (which I might add is a clean, beautifully kept village).
If I was young and hip and starting out on the music scene, I may have thought the name ‘Dr Peachey’ had a superb stage sound to it. After all, we have had music from major stars like Dr Hook and the Medicine Show, and the famous rap singer Professor Green and probably not a degree in sight. I am sure somebody will know. Moving on from such random musings, I will now impart the tale of a Ballyconnell GP named Dr Peachey.
Having moved to Ballyconnell in about 1890, Dr Peachey’s health had been ailing for some time. He spent his early career abroad in scenic Queensland, Australia where he had the misfortune to contract ‘fever and ague’, an affliction from which he never totally recovered. Was ‘ague’ a misspelling of ‘plague’? I wondered. I then discovered that the word ‘ague’ came from ‘acuta’, a medieval Latin word for a ‘sharp fever’, largely associated with malaria that is caused by mosquito bites. Surprisingly, ‘ague’ is a word for fever and its usage dates from around the 13th century. The experience Peachey gained in Australia must have been immense for a young doctor still in the early days of his career. Dr Peachey was a fully qualified surgeon who received his training in London.
Peachey’s wife, Alice Katherine Le Fleming nèe Hughes was born in India. When the doctor established a medical practice in Ballyconnell around 1890, he quickly became popular with the community and involved himself with the local sports committee which he then chaired for a while. Overall, he received little mention in the local paper aside from a reference to a letter of complaint he penned regarding the town’s imperfect drainage from where foul smells occasionally emanated to pollute the noses of local residents. Dr and Mrs Peachey lived at Rosebank, Ballyconnell.
On the morning of May 22, 1896, the doctor awoke at 3am. He was in extreme discomfort and feeling very poorly. For quite some time he had suffered and on the day before his death he handed a letter of resignation to the dispensary committee. Dr. Peachey presumed that a ‘change of air and scenery’ might ‘repair his shattered constitution.’ The saddest news of all, was learning that Dr Peachey missed the birth of his only child. Alice gave birth to Allan Thomas Peachey Jnr the day after her husband’s death. This paper expressed the sorrow felt, noting that ‘in Ballyconnell’ and its neighbourhood ‘the greatest sympathy is felt for Mrs Peachey who was in delicate health and gave birth to a son on the day of the inquest’.
The coroner, James McGovern, conducted the inquest in the presence of a jury. The doctor’s family servant, Thomas Crawford, when summoned, gave evidence about Peachey’s health. Dr Peachey got up at 7am that morning and informed Crawford he felt ‘very bad’. Continuing, he told the room, he had been his servant for four years and spoke of how ill his boss became in the weeks before his demise and speaking of the matter, told them: ‘I did not know what ailed him, I last saw him alive at 9:25am on Friday morning … he passed through the yard into the surgery.’
Five minutes later, at 9:30am, Crawford entered the surgery, and found him seated in a chair, dead. Crawford said he then sent for Dr Roe and got word to Sergeant Hughes.
Dr Roe agreed that Peachey suffered with his health firstly with the abdomen, but it spread to the head in the last months of his life. Roe concluded the death to be natural and added the cause, to be ‘congestion of the brain, terminating in apoplexy’. The sergeant alerted them to a page found on Dr Peachey’s desk, which they thought may have been for his wife. It read: ‘May God forgive me, my head is bursting my Da…’ The last word, although left unfinished, was thought to be ‘darling’.
Added to Peachey’s torment was the knowledge that his wife was soon to give birth to their first born baby. Roe concurred that the cause of death was as he stated. The coroner then addressed a rumour circulating that the doctor had poisoned himself, telling the jury, ‘I am happy to say from the evidence before me, there is not the slightest foundation for the supposition that he was poisoned. Mr J.J. Benison conveyed on behalf of the coroner and jury, their ‘sincere sympathy’ to Mrs Peachey.
At the funeral, on Monday, May 25, the Rev Luscombe officiated. Amongst the chief mourners was the deceased’s uncle J. Noble Peachey from London. Great sorrow was felt for Mrs Peachey who herself was in delicate health and having given birth to a baby son on the day of her late husband’s inquest whom she named Allan Thomas George Cumberland Peachey. Afterwards, the Ballyconnell Dispensary met to appoint a temporary Medical Officer ‘in place’ of Dr Peachey. After some deliberation they appointed Dr Teevan, while another contender for the post had been Dr. Annesley who lost out by a small margin of votes.
The 1901 Census shows us that Alice Katherine Peachey and her son Allan Thomas Peachey Jnr, aged four, living in the company of Margaret Agnes Collery, their domestic servant, at Rosebank, Derryginny, Ballyconnell. As we shall see next week, Dr Peachey’s son would have a fascinating career.
Allan Thomas George Cumberland Peachey (1896-1967) whose papers are held at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, was a friend of Lord Louis Mountbatten. His naval career took him from World War One, to World War Two, Palestine, the Suez and NATO. He served with the British Embassy, Cairo, from 1950 to 1954.
In case you are interested, Rosebank House which is a protected structure, recently came on the market. The construction of Dr and Alice Peachey’s former place of residence dates to 1812.
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