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Lurking on the Branches

Posted: 26 Oct 2012 12:41
by Gray
Hope your not sorry Mary, it's long :lol:

My g.father was David Gray born 29/1/1874 Coatbridge Lanarkshire.

His eldest sister was Jane Alice(aka jean)Gray born 29/6/1868 Greenock Scotland

Jane married Malcolm Watson born 24/8/1873 Cathcart Renfrewshire
They married 23/11/1900 Partick Parish Church (Scotlands People)
occ: Physician & surgeon (Later became Sir Malcolm Watson)

I could only find him on the 1881 Scottish census with his family, father George.

Then after much research I found: At the bottom it mentions Jean Gray.
birth: 1873 WATSON MALCOLM CATHCART /LANARK/RENFREW 560/00 0234 (Scotlandspeople)

marriage says usual residence Hampstead London


Apart from the 1881 census I cannot trace malcolm at all

Born in Cathcart, near Glasgow, on the 24th August 1873, Malcolm Watson was the son of George Watson, a Commercial Traveller. After an education at Glasgow High School, Malcolm first matriculated at the University of Glasgow in the summer of 1890 at the tender age of 16. He signed up to study Botany, Practical Botany and Anatomy and so began his medical career.

Malcolm would study the typical medical subjects like Surgery, Pathology, Materia Medica and Midwifery but in his final year, 1894-95, he would find time to squeeze in the study of English Literature also.

He was certainly a very promising student and picked up three First Class Certificates. He was in fact listed as first in his class for Clinical Surgery in 1891-02 and continued this trend by winning the William Cullen Medal for the subject in 1893-04. Malcolm Watson graduated on the 25th July 1895 with an MB CM and a commendation. He would proceed to MD in 1903 with a thesis titled: ‘The effect of drainage on malaria’.

As soon as he qualified, Malcolm travelled to places such as South Africa, Australia, Singapore, and the Philippines and joined the Malayan Medical Service in 1900 at the age of 27. In Malaya, he became the pioneer of malarial control and, importantly, was able to establish the causes of the deadly disease. He would remain a very important figure in the study of malaria and was heavily involved in the fight against the disease all his life.

Malcolm Watson became the Principal of the Department of Malaria Control at the Ross Institute and Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London. Because of his long friendship with Ronald Ross, the Ross family gave Malcolm (after the death of Ronald) a silver casket that had been presented to Ronald by the 1087 Anti-Malaria and Public Health Societies of Bengal for his work on malaria. Sir Malcolm Watson presented this casket to the University of Glasgow in 1946-47 and it is now part of the University's silver collection.

He was knighted in 1924 for his services in Malaya and the University of Glasgow conferred upon him the honorary degree of LLD in the same year.

Sir Malcolm Watson died on the 28th December 1955, aged 82.

Obituary:

Sir Malcolm Watson died on the 28th December 1955, aged 82.

Sir MALCOLM WATSON, M.D., LL.D., F.R.F.P.S.

We record with regret the death on December 28, at the

age of 82, of Sir Malcolm Watson, who was the pioneer

of malaria control and its outstanding exponent for many

years.

Malcolm Watson was born at Cathcart, near Glasgow,

,on August 24, 1873. From Glasgow High School he

went on to study medicine at Glasgow University, where

he graduated M.B., C.M.,

with commendation, in

1895. He proceeded to

the M.D. in 1903. Immediately

after qualifying he

set out for South Africa,

Austfalia, Singapore, and

the Philippines. This tour

probably made him responsive

to the call of the

East, and after holding a

series of resident appointments

at the Glasgow

_/ Royal Infirmary, he took

the D.P.H. of Cambridge

Portra_ University and joined the

[Press Portrait Bureau Malayan Medical Service

in 1900 at the age

of 27. Malaya was then in a very critical condition.

There was the prospect of unexampled prosperity from

the new and rapidly expanding rubber industry, but this

prospect was gravely jeopardized by overwhelming,

devastating malaria epidemics. Ross had just demonstrated

the transmission cycle, but it had never been

applied in control. Watson in Malaya, and his friend

Le Prince in Havana, were the pioneers in its application.

Watson combined the new knowledge with a great understanding

of epidemiological principles and was thereby

able to define the circumstances which led to malarial

prevalence. To these he added a broad outlook, great

adaptability, and a willingness to discover techniques of

civil engineering, and was thereby able to devise means

of control to suit any situation he encountered. There

was no ready formula, but he possessed an unmatched

expert ability to appreciate a situation and counter its

risks.

Within a few years the peril to the expanding rubber

industry had gone, the previously pest-stricken towns of

Malaya were almost health resorts, and abandoned construction

work, such as on Port Swettenham, had been

resumed. The miracle had happened and Malcolm

Watson had worked it. During this progress, in 1908,

he had left Government service and settled in estate

practice and as a consultant in malaria control and

hygiene, being called in to advise on the maintenance

of many projects, including especially the Perak River

hydro-electric scheme and the sanitation of Singapore.

Not only Watson, but with him Malaya also, became

pre-eminent in malaria control and admittedly led the

world until the Japanese occupation in 1942. In 1914

he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Rubber Growers'

Association; in 1925 he was elected a Fellow of the

Incorporated Society of Planters. His book on Rural

Sanitation in the Tropics was first published in 1915,

and he was also the author of a book entitled Preventioni

of Malaria in the Federated Malaya States (1911). When

the time came for him to leave Malaya in 1928 he had

helped to free hundreds of square miles of territorv

from malaria-carrying mosquitoes, and had recorded the

results of his work and the conclusions to be drawn from

them in numerous articles, as well as in the two books

already mentioned. He was also the author of the

sections on the Malay States in Ross's Preventioni of

Malaria and on mosquito control in Byam and

Archibald's Practice of Medicine in the Tropics.

Returning to London in 1928, Watson u-as appoinited

director of the malaria department of the Ross Institute

at Putney and physician to the Hospital for Tropical

Diseases. When the Ross Institute was amalgamated

with the London School of Hygiene in 1933, Watson

remained director of the Institute and was appointed in

addition director of the department of tropical hygiene

at the School. In this post he set out to accelerate the

application of malaria control in other countries. He

built the Ross Institute in doing so. He visited India and

Ceylon in 1928 and 1929, creating the India -branch,

which, under Dr. Ramsay, applied his principles and

new techniques to the problems of the tea and other

industries. In 1930 he visited the Belgian Congo and

the Rhodesias, and again implanted his principles in the

new and growing copper belt. In 1931 he went to Italy

and Albania; in 1932 and 1935 he revisited Central and

Southern Africa ; in 1937 he went out to the Britishowned

mines in Yugoslavia, and also to Ceylon and

Malaya; and in 1939 he went again to Southern

Rhodesia and to India and Ceylon. The advice he gave

to the Rhodesian mining companies resulted in the

setting up of model, and malaria-free, townships in

equatorial Africa. He retired from directorship of the

Ross Institute in 1942.

Sir Malcolm was always an active supporter of the

British Medical Association. He was president of the

Malaya Branch in 1910 and agaih in 1922, and three

years ago he served for a term as president of the Sturrey

BRITISH

MEDICAL JOURNAL 52 JAN.- 7, 1 956

OBITUARY

Branch. He was a member of the Central Council

between 1928 and 1934, and of numerous committees,

including the Dominions Committee, Indian Medical

Services Committee, the Committee on the Organization

of the Medical Profession in India, and the Special

Committee on the Relation of the Association to the

Profession in India. In 1927, while he was still in

Malaya, the British Medical Association awarded him

the Stewart Prize for his scientific and administrative

work.

For his services in Malaya he was knighted in 1924,

and the University of Glasgow conferred on him the

honorary degree of LL.D. in the same year. Two years

later he received the honorary diploma of L.M.S. from

the College of Medicine in Singapore. In 1928 he was

awarded the Sir William Jones Gold Medal, of the

Asiatic Society of Bengal for contributions to science,

and in 1934 the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine

awarded him the Mary Kingsley Medal. In the preceding

year he had been elected an honorary Fellow of

the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.

He gave the Finlayson Memorial Lecture in 1934,

the Stephen Paget Memorial Lecture in 1936, the Bacot

Memorial Lecture in 1937, and in 1948 the Ronald Ross

Oration in Washington, D.C., where he was honorary

president of the Fourth International Congress on

Tropical Medicine and Malaria. While working in

Malaya he had been a member of the Malaria Advisory

Board of the Federated Malay States, and in the

years before the second world war he was a member

of the Malaria Committee of the League of Nations. In

1950 he visited Boston' Mass., representing the Ross

Institute at an International Conference on Health

Problems in Industries Operating in Tropical Countries.

He had always been interested in engineering, and only

a few years ago he was the inventor, with Lady Watson,

of a patent process for control of dust in mines and for

the prevention of silicosis. Two years ago he published

a book entitled African Highway, which dealt, among

other matters, with medical aspects of industrial development

in that continent.

Sir Malcolm Watson was twice married. His first

wife, formerly Miss Jean Gray, died in 1935. They

had three sons. In 1938 he married Miss Constance

Loring, by whom he had one daughter.-G. M.

WILLIAM BARR, M.D., D.Sc., D.P.H.

Jane (Jean) Gray died 1935 Epsom Surrey

Malcolm remarried Constance Evelyn Loring born 1899 Malta. Daughter of Lt. Colonel Walter Lathom Loring of the Royal Warwickshire Regt. Killed in action 23/10/1914

Walter had a brother: Ernest Kindersley Loring who married Ottilie Maud Messel
Father: Ludwig Ernest William Leonnhard Messel born 1847 Damstraat Germany occ: stockbroker/banker (plenty on him when googled)

Ottilie has a brother:
Leonard Charles Rudolph Messel born 1872 Brixton Occ: lt. Colonel/Stockbroker.
He married maud Frances Sambourne born 1874 Kensington

3 children:
Linley F messel 1899-1971
Anne messel 1902 - 1992
Oliver Hilary Sambourne Messel 1902 -1992

Anne messel married Ronald Owen Armstrong - Jones (later divorced) became Countess of Rosse.

One of their children was: Anthony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones
Princess Margarets' hubby :lol:

If your still awake? zzzzz

Gray

Re: Lurking on the Branches

Posted: 26 Oct 2012 14:31
by MaryA
Our Gray connected to Royalty then! Very well researched and a lot of input! Methinks it has the makings of a Journal entry, what does anybody else think?

Re: Lurking on the Branches

Posted: 26 Oct 2012 16:59
by dickiesam
MaryA wrote:Our Gray connected to Royalty then! Very well researched and a lot of input! Methinks it has the makings of a Journal entry, what does anybody else think?
Definitely something for the Journal!

BTW, small world! If I may say that my wife and I met Anne Messel, Countess of Rosse, and her 2nd husband Laurence Parsons, the 6th Earl of Rosse, on a number of occasions because their family seat was in Birr, County Offaly, where we lived for a number of years in the late 60s and early 70s. They would run a charity function and sale or two each year and it was de rigueur for the local business community to attend! I believe we may still have a couple of items donated to a sale by the Countess.

Re: Lurking on the Branches

Posted: 26 Oct 2012 17:47
by Gray
David Gray was my sole reason for pursuing Family History.

From being a small child I remember whisperings re the 'Gray' family.
One by one, these whispers are becoming reality.

David's mother Jane Wayman died when he was ten days old. His father David Gray born 10/5/1837 Cawdor Nairnshire occ: consultant civil engineer (marr cert) married Agnes Wingate Johnston daughter of a prebytarian minister.

One of his half-brothers John Herbert Gray 25/12/1878 Coatbridge occ: analytical chemist, married Letha Sims born Canada.
They married 1902 Ireland. Circa 1911 he and his family emigrated to Canada.

John signed up for WW1 ( have his attestation paper) Canadian over-seas expiditionary force, which confirms all the above.

He survived the war and returned home. Soon after he left the family home never to be seen or heard of again. I have all this from his family in America(his wife moved there with the children) I am in touch with his g.daughter.

I have two more whispers I would like to prove or otherwise.

1.David's mother was reputedly related to Baden-Powell (by what I am finding lately.. it is possible.

2. My final whisper is my wonderful g.father was probably a bigamist. I believe he did exactly the same as his brother..

I very often wonder what wars do to mens minds, there are other types of casualties.

Gray

Re: Lurking on the Branches

Posted: 27 Oct 2012 20:20
by simone
Fab research Gray :D :D not surprised you've been awol for a while :lol: must of took you a while :wink:

Deffo one for the journal :D

Simone x

Re: Lurking on the Branches

Posted: 27 Oct 2012 22:39
by Gray
Hi All,

I am not sure about an article :oops:
I think anyone who may be interested will have read it here.

The research has taken a 'Long Time' a pure labour of love.. and inquisitiveness (maybe I listened at too many keyholes as a child)? :lol:
I really don't care what my g.father did.. I loved him.. He was my hero!

The marriage connections are interesting.

It is men like Malcolm Watson MD that make me sit up.

Men like Walter Lathom Loring

April 25, is ANZAC Day when we remember the fallen at Gallipoli during the First World War. Two BSA students were killed during the campaign. Lieutenant George Leonard Cheesman, Hampshire Regiment, fell on 10 August 1915 during the surprise attack on Chunuk Bairun, and Captain William Loring, 2nd Scottish Horse, died of his wounds on the hospital ship Devanha on 24 October 1915. Loring's brother, Captain Ernest Loring RN, also served aboard ship at Gallipoli; two further brothers, Lt.-Col. Walter Latham Loring, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and Major Charles Buxton Loring, 37th Lancers (Baluch Horse) had been killed on the Western Front in October and December 1914.



Grayx

Re: Lurking on the Branches

Posted: 28 Oct 2012 08:08
by MaryA
I would urge you to think about it, there are many members around the world who wouldn't have heard of it and we are all looking to other's experiences as to thre resources used to discover their research, it helps with their own.

Re: Lurking on the Branches

Posted: 28 Oct 2012 09:27
by Gray
Valid point Mary,

I will see what I can do.

Have sent you a p.m with regards to the approach you want.

Gray

Re: Lurking on the Branches

Posted: 28 Oct 2012 17:16
by erika
Well done Gray an amazing story and fantastic discoveries regarding your ancestry.

I think you should definitely have it published in the Journal, not everyone will read it here on the forum :D

You are our very own WDYTYA celebrity :wink:

Re: Lurking on the Branches

Posted: 28 Oct 2012 20:11
by Gray
The deed is done, have sent off for approval, acceptance & editorial, ahem :lol:

The journey has been wonderful for me, brought back so many vivid memories.

David was totally blind when I was growing up.. I was known as his eyes. We were always together.

Being the tactful child I asked him once, why can't you see? He replied. " During the war a bomb exploded, blew the tank door off, it hit me on the head" I believed him! he was about 80 at the time and probably had old age cataractsxx

grandad died 1958 L.pool, I was 10

Grayx

Re: Lurking on the Branches

Posted: 29 Oct 2012 07:44
by MaryA
Lovely story Gray, we look forward to seeing it in the Journal.