Traeth Mawr -Building Mr Price's house , (mostly)

[Donw]

I love the research into Doctors and the figures are up to your usual high standard.

 

Don

[Compound2632]

13 hours ago, ChrisN said:

It turns out that GPs did not really exist.  They were in fact Surgeon Apothecaries, who had to be careful if they had a shop, of not being classed as ‘tradesmen’.  Also, due to in built doctor snobbery, they were not allowed degree level training and were not allow to be called ‘doctor’, just ‘Mr’.  (Nowadays there is the inbuilt snobbery of Surgeons who make a point of being called ‘Mr’ to show they are not physicians.)  They were known as ‘Medical Practitioners’.  So that is what the doctor in Barmouth was, and it was not just a grand title for being a GP.

 

But they must have had some medical training. In the popular imagination (i.e. mine) they were usually Scots or Irish - could they be holders of degrees from one of the Scottish or Irish universities?

[Edwardian]

9 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

But they must have had some medical training. In the popular imagination (i.e. mine) they were usually Scots or Irish - could they be holders of degrees from one of the Scottish or Irish universities?

 

This Study includes a sample that shows what qualifications GPs in London and the Provinces had. 

[Compound2632]

23 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

 

This Study includes a sample that shows what qualifications GPs in London and the Provinces had. 

 

The data is for 1847; one wonders by how much the situation changed in the following half-century?

[ChrisN]

This is the other paper that I read.

 

Rise of the GP in the 19th century.pdf

 

I am sure there was other stuff I read but there was very little evidence of what they did practically.  Doctors generally sold their services so in larger urban areas I would assume that doctors who worked in hospitals also had private clinics.  There is probably more information out there but I had found the easy pickings and got enough for what I needed

[Compound2632]

Perhaps my stereotype of the Scottish or Irish country doctor in England and Wales has more to do with the excess of suitably qualified persons relative to the medical needs of Scotland and Ireland. Education was the way out of agricultural poverty in both countries - one son a minister / priest (as applicable), another a doctor was the fondest wish of many a parent. The late Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Murphy Cormac O'Connor, though a native of Reading, was the son of a GP who had emigrated from County Cork at about the time my grandfather left Arklow - during the civil war - and had a brother who was a doctor. The instinct runs deep - a friend of mine who is in the building trade* is very proud of his twin daughters, both qualifed medics.

 

*i.e. of Irish descent.

Edited May 19, 2021 by Compound2632

[corneliuslundie]

Surely the doctor in Traeth Mawr would be one of the descendants of the Physicians of Myddfai:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicians_of_Myddfai

Jonathan

[MikeOxon]

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) tells us quite a lit about medical practice in the 19th century in her novel 'Middlemarch', published in 1871/2.  Her character Mr Lydgate is introduced as "Tell me about this new young surgeon, Mr. Lydgate. I am told he is wonderfully clever: he certainly looks it--a fine brow indeed."

"He is a gentleman. I heard him talking to Humphrey. He talks well." "Yes. Mr. Brooke says he is one of the Lydgates of Northumberland, really well connected. One does not expect it in a practitioner of that kind. For my own part, I like a medical man more on a footing with the servants; they are often all the cleverer. I assure you I found poor Hicks's judgment unfailing; I never knew him wrong. He was coarse and butcher-like, but he knew my constitution. It was a loss to me his going off so suddenly. Dear me, what a very animated conversation Miss Brooke seems to be having with this Mr. Lydgate!" "She is talking cottages and hospitals with him," said Mrs. Cadwallader, whose ears and power of interpretation were quick. "I believe he is a sort of philanthropist, so Brooke is sure to take him up."

 

Mike

[Mikkel]

On 18/05/2021 at 23:41, ChrisN said:

 

 

Nice work Chris, I didn't know they had blended families back then! 

 

On 18/05/2021 at 23:41, ChrisN said:

On a model railway, if they have a long skirt they are Victorian.  If they have a wide skirt they are mid- Victorian.  I am sure it is only me who cringes when I see Edwardian figures on an 1880s layout.

 

Could you elaborate a little on that please Chris? Long dresses were also common in Edwardian times, weren't they?

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Mikkel

[Edwardian]

18 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) tells us quite a lit about medical practice in the 19th century in her novel 'Middlemarch', published in 1871/2.  Her character Mr Lydgate is introduced as "Tell me about this new young surgeon, Mr. Lydgate. I am told he is wonderfully clever: he certainly looks it--a fine brow indeed."

"He is a gentleman. I heard him talking to Humphrey. He talks well." "Yes. Mr. Brooke says he is one of the Lydgates of Northumberland, really well connected. One does not expect it in a practitioner of that kind. For my own part, I like a medical man more on a footing with the servants; they are often all the cleverer. I assure you I found poor Hicks's judgment unfailing; I never knew him wrong. He was coarse and butcher-like, but he knew my constitution. It was a loss to me his going off so suddenly. Dear me, what a very animated conversation Miss Brooke seems to be having with this Mr. Lydgate!" "She is talking cottages and hospitals with him," said Mrs. Cadwallader, whose ears and power of interpretation were quick. "I believe he is a sort of philanthropist, so Brooke is sure to take him up."

 

Mike

 

The doctor in the Nineteenth Century novel is a fascinating subject. Most Victorian novelists were middle class and tended to champion medical men as such and because they represent science and rationality. Fowles' French Lieutenant's Woman, which has a lot to say about the Victorian novel, picks up on this.  

 

Thus, there is a sort of promotion by novels of the medical man as a middle class hero in direct opposition to the aristocratic prejudice (as exemplified by the passage from Elliot you cite) that sought to deny them social status commensurate with the dignity of modern, scientific medical practice.

[ChrisN]

9 hours ago, Mikkel said:

 

Could you elaborate a little on that please Chris? Long dresses were also common in Edwardian times, weren't they?

 

 

Mikkel,

Yes, long skirts were common, in fact considered compulsory on moral grounds, up until the 20s, but were getting shorter.  (Girls were allowed to wear shorter dresses but when they reached a certain age they were corseted and the long skirt came with it.)  They were mid calf by the early 20s for the younger folk although they were longer for the older folk as they did not move as quickly with fashion.

 

The Stadden figures show floor length skirts mostly and that is how they were for probably the previous, well 100, 200 or more years.  However, fashion is fashion,  Every year the fashion was different, slightly, so if you look at a dress of 1895 it will be different from 1896, or 1905.  My grand daughter pointed out to me yesterday that the lady in the picture that I modelled Ellen Williams on, did not have puff sleeves, which is true, but she was definitely Edwardian and by that time puff sleeves had disappeared.  The 1890s did not have bustles, but as you went further back at some times they did, in increasing or decreasing sizes as the years went by.  The 1880s had sort of layered skirts with a large bustle so were very different from Edwardian skirts.

 

The Langley figures have a nice mix of Victorian styles for the women, and I think on the seated figures that one dress looks 1880s, but she looks old so may well be wearing an old dress.  ()  I have seen a set of new Edwardian figures and the best of the lot looks to be wearing a dress from the 1880s.

 

I am not a great one for fashion, but I seem to have fallen into having a good idea of what the fashions looked like as I tried to get a feel of what the figures should look like.  So when I see an Andy Stadden figure on an 1880 layout I have to bite my tongue.  It is, for me, like putting an Aifix coal wagon on a layout and calling it a D299, but although @Compound2632 would immediately notice that, it might take me a little while.

 

Hope that helps.  I have to say that none of your figures look out of place or out of time, always an inspiration.

 

Must dash, have to have a shower and go and pick my son up from Birmingham.

[MikeOxon]

For anyone interesting in Victorian fashion, I wrote about it in my blog back in 2014 - see:

Mike

[Compound2632]

6 hours ago, ChrisN said:

I am not a great one for fashion, but I seem to have fallen into having a good idea of what the fashions looked like as I tried to get a feel of what the figures should look like.  So when I see an Andy Stadden figure on an 1880 layout I have to bite my tongue.  It is, for me, like putting an Aifix coal wagon on a layout and calling it a D299, but although @Compound2632 would immediately notice that, it might take me a little while.

 

Taking the wagon analogy a little further, I've reached the conclusion that the typical (modal) life in traffic of an ordinary wagon built between c. 1860 and c. 1930 was around 30 - 35 years, so this should inform one's choice of wagons for the date at which one's model railway is set*, Likewise, most people got many years of wear out of their clothes; it would, I'm sure, only be at a West End evening party that one could set one's watch by the fashions. So clothes of the 1880s would certainly still be being worn in 1895 in such a provincial place as Traeth Mawr. Ladies' (not women's) clothes are the most likely exception. I'm willing to bet bustles were ditched the instant word got out that they were no longer the height of fashion.

 

*But this does not mean that, if modelling, say, c. 1902, one-third of one's wagons should hail from the 1870s. One has to allow for the very considerable expansion of wagon fleets in the 1880s and 90s, on most lines.

Edited May 21, 2021 by Compound2632

[ChrisN]

6 hours ago, MikeOxon said:

For anyone interesting in Victorian fashion, I wrote about it in my blog back in 2014 - see:

Mike

 

Mike,

  The Barrington House website, (still under construction and is the same as five years ago), has fashion plates for a number of years, although the site is US based, I am sure that in general the fashions were not too different.  

[ChrisN]

5 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Taking the wagon analogy a little further, I've reached the conclusion that the typical (modal) life in traffic of an ordinary wagon built between c. 1860 and c. 1930 was around 30 - 35 years, so this should inform one's choice of wagons for the date at which one's model railway is set*, Likewise, most people got many years of wear out of their clothes; it would, I'm sure, only be at a West End evening party that one could set one's watch by the fashions. So clothes of the 1880s would certainly still be being worn in 1895 in such a provincial place as Traeth Mawr. Ladies' (not women's) clothes are the most likely exception. I'm willing to bet bustles were ditched the instant word got out that they were no longer the height of fashion.

 

*But this does not mean that, if modelling, say, c. 1902, one-third of one's wagons should hail from the 1870s. One has to allow for the very considerable expansion of wagon fleets in the 1880s and 90s, on most lines.

 

Stephen,

We have discussed on a thread somewhere, maybe here, that as clothes were made to last second, third fourth and even fifth hand clothes were sold.  As you have said, if a dress was made to go with a bustle, then even if that dress was worn after the bustle era had gone, then it would be worn without one.  I have a book called 'Grandfather's London', which is a book of ordinary people in 1875.  Half on in one photo is a lady in a dress obviously from the 1850s, but worn without the crinoline.

 

In Traeth Mawr, you must not underestimate Mrs Lewis who runs the dress shop.  If your wife wants a new dress, then she can easily run you up one of the latest fashion.  The poorer locals may not have a new dress each year but the more well off ones may do.  On this Flickr Album of Barmouth which I always quote, the fashions in most cases do not appear to be too far out of what was current.  Barmouth is just south of Traeth Mawr so in some ways is not too dissimilar.

 

Given that people wore clothes that were in fashion, out of fashion or no fashion, and that for most railway modellers people are an afterthought you can put who you like on the layout and most people will not notice.

 

As for wagons, and coaches, the Cambrian began building more, and more of the same around and after 1895, and did not keep lists apart from total numbers and photos of anything but locos were rare before 1900 so we are working in the dark mostly.  The layout I saw that had a dragon in a cattle wagon was probably based on reality, but there is no evidence to either prove or disprove it.

[corneliuslundie]

Wasn't one of the things which changed quite a lot around 1895 the size of women's sleeves? I can imagine that when they became smaller younger women at least would have wanted their dresses altered so as not to look old fashioned.

I agree about Cambrian wagons 2 plank wagons and 6 ton vans for years, almost up to the Grouping.

Jonathan

[ChrisN]

11 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

Wasn't one of the things which changed quite a lot around 1895 the size of women's sleeves? I can imagine that when they became smaller younger women at least would have wanted their dresses altered so as not to look old fashioned.

I agree about Cambrian wagons 2 plank wagons and 6 ton vans for years, almost up to the Grouping.

Jonathan

 

Jonathan,

Yes, the sleeves were quite tight in 1890, and got larger 'puffs' at the top until 1895, then gradually got smaller again, so mum could pass off her 1890s dress as high fashion in 1900.  Well. perhaps not.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, ChrisN said:

The layout I saw that had a dragon in a cattle wagon was probably based on reality, but there is no evidence to either prove or disprove it.

 

Ah yes, Llawryglyn. A splendid little layout - I saw it at the Spring 2019 ExpoEM in Bracknell.

[MikeOxon]

As I recall from 'Ivor the Engine', a tame Welsh dragon was useful to have to hand if the fire needed a bit of a boost to get going in a hurry

[Compound2632]

As Dai Station, always a stickler for the Rulebook, says, "livestock must be conveyed in the proper container".

[richbrummitt]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Ah yes, Llawryglyn. A splendid little layout - I saw it at the Spring 2019 ExpoEM in Bracknell.

I remember the ‘dragon wagon’ but not the name. A lovely gentleman owner the layout has too. 

[ChrisN]

The layout had Ivor as well as the dragon.  It was a serious layout, well executed, but he did not take himself too seriously.  Give me a moment and I will post some pictures.

 

Here we are:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If in the end I get anywhere near as good as this, or even half as good, I will be pleased.

[Mikkel]

Very nice photos Chris. I have always liked water tanks with a timber construction like that. Rare on the larger railways though. Did the Cambrian have them, or is it modeller's license?

 

I saw the layout at the Swindon exhibition once, never noticed the dragon. Some nice goods stock though. Richard Loydall is the builder I believe. 

 

 

 

[ChrisN]

5 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Very nice photos Chris. I have always liked water tanks with a timber construction like that. Rare on the larger railways though. Did the Cambrian have them, or is it modeller's license?

 

I saw the layout at the Swindon exhibition once, never noticed the dragon. Some nice goods stock though. Richard Loydall is the builder I believe. 

 

 

 

 

Mikkel,

Lovely picture.  I seem to remember that this was a branch off the Cambrian.  (I saw the program with the details in the other day but now that I want it, it has disappeared.)  On Cambrian branches, especially if they were taken over later, anything could happen, so wooden supported water tanks are quite possible.  

 

Notice that the second wagon is from Grumbly Gas Works.  This is the Gas Works that Ivor the Engine delivered one wagon load of coal to on a regular basis.  It was the Grumbly and District Choral Society where Ivor sang as base.  (He had three deep whistles to do so.)

[NCB]

Think it was supposed to be a branch off the Van branch. As it is a through station it could have continued to somewhere north of the current Llyn Clywedog, although there are substantial hills in the way.

 

Nigel