Inevitably,
with the approach of Sir Walter’s 400th anniversary, the name of Dr
Brushfield comes to the fore among Budleigh worthies of the past.
It was a
Budleigh resident, Roger Bowen, who felt that Brushfield’s story ‘richly
deserves to be told’, tackling the first-ever detailed biography of this
celebrated 19th century specialist in mental illness.
As a pioneer
in the treatment of lunacy, writes Roger, he had few equals. But like Ralegh he
was a polymath, and as a bibliophile he was equally celebrated for his studies
of Sir Walter’s life and literary works.
Roger’s
book From Lunacy to Croquet: The Life and Times of Dr Thomas Nadauld Brushfield was
published in 2013. And now, in 2018, Dr Brushfield is receiving a further
honour with the installation of a blue plaque at his former home in Budleigh,
the Grade II listed building known as The Cliff.
Dr Brushfield in later years
Thomas Nadauld Brushfield was born in London on 10 December 1828. He was a son of Thomas
Brushfield, a City merchant, magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant of the Tower of
London. Brushfield Street in the London district of Spitalfields was named in
his honour in 1870. There was Huguenot ancestry in the family: Dr Brushfield’s grandfather, George Brushfield, had married
Ann Nadauld, great-granddaughter of the sculptor Henri Nadauld.
Examples of Henri Nadauld’s work are at Chatsworth’s Conduit House, seen above,
and Westminster Abbey.
Dr Brushfield was educated at a private boarding school at Buckhurst
Hill, Essex, before becoming a student at the London Hospital, where he
obtained three gold medals and became Resident House Surgeon. He became member of the Royal College of Surgeons
in 1850, graduating MD at St Andrews University in 1862.
A 19th century engraving of Chester County Lunatic Asylum
After serving as house surgeon at the London
Hospital he joined Dr John Millar at Bethnal House Asylum, London. In 1852 Brushfield was appointed
house surgeon to Chester County Lunatic Asylum, and was first resident medical
superintendent from 1854 until 1865.
Brookwood
Hospital, as the former Asylum became known, in 1900
In 1865 he was appointed medical superintendent of
the then planned Surrey County Asylum at Brookwood, near Woking. The buildings were
designed by architect Charles Henry Howell, the principal asylum architect in
England and architect to the Lunacy Commissioners, but were planned in
accordance with Brushfield’s suggestions, and later on he helped to design the
Cottage Hospital there. The Brookwood Asylum, as it was originally known, was
renamed Brookwood Hospital in 1919.
From its opening on 17 June 1867 until its closure
in 1994, it was the leading mental hospital for the western half of Surrey,
occupying a large site at Knaphill, near Brookwood. The hospital had a dairy
farm, a cobbler's workshop, a large ballroom, and had its own fire brigade,
gasworks and sewage farm. It employed the services of many local businesses.
Depiction
of a fancy dress ball at Brookwood Asylum shown in The Illustrated London News,
1881.
Image credit:
http://wellcomeimages.
Brushfield was a pioneer of the non-restraint
treatment of lunatics, and he sought to lighten the patients’ life in asylums
by making the wards cheerful and by organising entertainments.
‘Full of zeal in his work and with a remarkable
capacity for organization and management’, as he was described in an obituary
for the British Medical Journal,
Brushfield introduced a new era in the treatment of the insane. ‘His kind and
thoughtful solicitude for the welfare of his unfortunate patients caused him to
promote schemes for their entertainment which have been adopted in
every asylum since that time.’
He was, it seems, on every occasion, ready to take on the role of playwright, actor and stage manager in addition to that of medical superintendent.
He was, it seems, on every occasion, ready to take on the role of playwright, actor and stage manager in addition to that of medical superintendent.
He held the post at Brookwood post 16 years until 1882, when he was seriously assaulted by a patient, an incident which brought about his retirement to Budleigh Salterton.
Why Budleigh? The town had been specially praised for its health-giving properties in Thomas Shapter’s 1862 book The Climate of the South of Devon, and Brushfield was perhaps aware of this following the Brookwood episode.
Eight years after
his move to Devon, in 1890, he would describe Budleigh as ‘a favourite resort
of many, who, during the summer months seek a quiet health inspiring change
from the atmosphere of large towns, with the additional advantage in the eyes
of some, that the precincts have not as yet been invaded by the locomotive.’
And in 1902 it was clear that he had not
changed his mind when he claimed: ‘No seaside resort in the West of England is
better suited for the recovery of the invalid, for the recreation of the casual
visitor, or for prolonging the life of the resident.’
Hayes Barton, near East Budleigh: Ralegh's birthplace
But perhaps a more likely attraction, even given Brushfield’s state of
health after the incident at Brookwood, is Budleigh’s proximity to Sir Walter
Ralegh’s birthplace. Two biographies of the Elizabethan adventurer had been
published in 1868: James
Augustus St John’s Life had been based on researches in the archives at Madrid and
elsewhere, while the librarian Edward Edwards’ two-volume work had included 159 of Sir
Walter’s letters.
And then, of course, there was Sir John Everett Millais’
celebrated painting ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’ famously begun on Budleigh beach
in 1870 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London.
Shortly after his arrival in the town Brushfield
joined the Devonshire Association (DA) and wrote a paper, ‘Notes
on the Ralegh Family’, which he read at the DA meeting the following year. His bibliography of Ralegh was published in book form in 1886 – with a 2nd edition in 1908; it first appeared serially in The Western Antiquary: or, Devon and Cornwall notebook. This began a series of papers, ‘Raleghana, research into Walter Ralegh’s life and literary work’, which were published in the DA’s Transactions between 1896 and 1907. ‘Ralegh Miscellanea’ – Parts I and II followed in 1909-10.
Brushfield was keen to explore in depth various aspects of Ralegh’s
life. In 1909, at the DA meeting in Launceston, he stated that he had chosen a
subject which should relate to Sir Walter’s links with the sister-county. ‘Although his name is more intimately connected
with Devonshire, it has many claims to be included in any history of Cornwall,’
he explained, quoting Raleigh’s support as an MP for the tin miners.
He went on
to point out the anachronism in the celebrated Victorian painting by Seymour
Lucas, entitled ‘Bowls on the Hoe’, which depicts both Drake and Ralegh at the
moment that the Spanish Armada had been sighted. Sir Walter, noted Brushfield,
was in fact at that moment ‘fully occupied in Cornwall in seeing the coast
defences were in order’.
The ‘Farm of Wines' Indenture which boosted Ralegh's income
Another extremely detailed paper contributed by
Brushfield concerned Ralegh and the ‘Farm of Wines’ conferred on him in 1583 by
Queen Elizabeth I as a mark of royal favour: this was a monopoly whereby every
retailer of wines was required to take out a licence, for which a fee or annual
rent was paid to Ralegh.
East Budleigh’s All Saints’ Church, where the Ralegh family worshipped and where Sir Walter’s father was churchwarden, was the subject of a series of papers published by Brushfield in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association between 1891 and 1894. He contributed other papers on similar themes to other journals.
Brushfield was involved with a number of West Country
associations. He was elected to the Council of the Devonshire Association in
1883, and was its President in 1893–4. His presidential address at the DA
meeting in Torquay on Tuesday 25 July was titled ‘The literature of Devonshire up to the year 1640.’ He was also a
founder-member of the Devon and Cornwall Society in 1904.
Lady Gertrude Rolle with
wheelbarrow at the cutting of the first sod to build Budleigh's railway on 6
November 1895. The ceremonial spade used for the cutting is in Fairlynch Museum
Nearer home, he was present at the cutting of the first sod for the new Budleigh railway,
having joined the Board of Directors. He was also a member of Budleigh
Salterton Urban District Council and was active in establishing the Cottage
Hospital, becoming Chairman of the Trustees for many years. He was also the 1907-9
President of Budleigh’s Croquet Club. And he was a well-known Freemason, having held the rank of Past Provincial Grand Senior Warden (P.P.G.S.W.) of Surrey.
As at Brookwood Asylum, Brushfield entered
into the spirit of the occasion by taking an active part in community
events. In the report on a Jumble Sale to raise funds for the Budleigh Salterton and East Budleigh Cottage
Garden Society on 12 November 1896 he was noted as taking a stall and
contributing songs during the evening. On another occasion, when he had been
unable to attend, a report noted: ‘Great
disappointment was felt by many at the absence of Dr Brushfield, so long
associated with, and always with great advantage, to theatricals of Salterton.’
The Cliff, on Cliff Road, Budleigh Salterton
Dr Brushfield’s Grade II-listed former home is one of the landmark buildings of Budleigh, though, amazingly, at one
time it was threatened with demolition. The Cliff was built at some time
between 1827 and 1834.
Fine stained glass is one of the features of the building
In 1882, following
his purchase of the house, he added a single storey Gothic style library wing to
the north side; a little later a Swiss-chalet style pavilion was built on the
south side.
Yet more stained glass: a view from the road
Both were built by a
Budleigh builder, Jacob Cowd, with woodwork by local carpenter, William Keslake;
this included the many bookshelves, fitted all round the wall of the Library to
house Brushfield’s 10,000 volumes.
Brushfield
in his library. The desk used to belong to his neighbour opposite, the writer Thomas
Adolphus Trollope, brother of the better known Anthony.
It was in this
Library that Brushfield earned a further distinction. According to the British Medical Journal for December
1910 he was one of the oldest and most significant readers for the Oxford
English Dictionary, to which he contributed upwards of 70,000 slips.
The news of his death
at the age of 81, when it came on 28 November 1910 after a short illness, was
greeted with sadness not just in Budleigh but throughout Devon and beyond. ‘The world has lost a
bright, useful man,’ noted the British
Medical Journal.
He left a widow, Hannah, together with three sons and three daughters. Two of the daughters married medical men. Two sons followed their father into the same profession: one of them, Thomas, became a noted physician in his own right, being the first to describe ‘Brushfield spots’ – often observed in newborn infants with Down syndrome – in his 1924 MD thesis.
He left a widow, Hannah, together with three sons and three daughters. Two of the daughters married medical men. Two sons followed their father into the same profession: one of them, Thomas, became a noted physician in his own right, being the first to describe ‘Brushfield spots’ – often observed in newborn infants with Down syndrome – in his 1924 MD thesis.
Typically, a bookplate from one of Dr
Brushfield’s books bears images of Ralegh's birthplace and of the great man himself; it also tells us how to spell his name
On his death, Dr Brushfield’s lantern slides went to the Exeter Public
Library, with some of the major Ralegh items from his library. The rest of his
library of about 10,000 volumes and manuscripts was dispersed after his death,
being sold by auction in Exeter.
Dr Brushfield and his wife Hannah are buried in St Peter’s Burial Ground, Budleigh Salterton. Block C, row 6.
Roger Bowen’s book From Lunacy to Croquet is available via
Amazon at https://www.amazon.in/Lunacy-Croquet-Thomas-Nadauld-Brushfield/dp/1483935213
Publishing this tribute on New Year's Day seemed only right to me. People sometimes do question the workings of the British Honours system. However in Dr Brushfield's case I think that everyone would agree that he deserved at the very least an MBE - if such things had been around during his lifetime.
Publishing this tribute on New Year's Day seemed only right to me. People sometimes do question the workings of the British Honours system. However in Dr Brushfield's case I think that everyone would agree that he deserved at the very least an MBE - if such things had been around during his lifetime.
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