Ancestral Links to the Irish Family of Surgeons

John Irish (1712-1769), of Chobham and Egham in Surrey, was one of the great-great-great-great grandfathers of Eva Willis (Townsend). John was an apothecary and surgeon. This occupation was also followed by his eldest son David Irish, his son-in-law Thomas Chalcraft, and his grandson Robert Stracey Irish.

The wider Irish family in southern England was noted for its involvement in medical practice and care. David Irish (1715-1774) was also a surgeon. His marriage home was initially in Egham, but early on he moved to Greenwich in Kent. Two of his sons, James and Henry, were also surgeons in Greenwich.

John Irish and David Irish had close family links, as might be surmised from their common occupation and geographical origin. John’s daughter Frances married David’s son Thomas; the most likely scenario is that they were first cousins, and that John and David were brothers. However no records have yet been found to directly confirm this.

There is some evidence that David’s father was John Irish of Wokingham (or Oakingham as it was then known). If so it is likely that John Irish of Wokingham was also the father of John Irish of Chobham, and hence was Eva Willis’ great-great-great-great-great grandfather. There is a separate confirmed Wokingham connection for John Irish of Chobham and his family. John Irish’s second son John Irish Junior married a Mary Mogg at Wokingham All Saints. Two of John and Mary’s children were baptised in Egham, but their third child, Jane, was baptised at Wokingham All Saints in 1766. This baptism took place just four days after another Jane Irish was buried there; It is possible that this Jane was actually John Irish Junior’s eldest sister. In August 1760 a Mary Irish from Egham was buried at Wokingham All Saints; this was possibly John’s wife – Eva Willis’ great-great-great-great grandmother.

The eighteenth century was a time of great development and change in the practice of medicine and surgery. In 1700 three professional bodies controlled different aspects of the practice of medicine and surgery in and around London: The Royal College of Physicians of London, the Society of Apothecaries, and the Barber-Surgeons Company of London. The latter divided in 1745 into the Barbers’ Company and the Company of Surgeons, which was re-founded as the College of Surgeons in 1800. Quite often during this century mixed terminology was used to describe medical practitioners, such as “barber-surgeon” or “surgeon and apothecary.”

Some of the Irish family medical practitioners in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were specifically involved in care for the mentally ill. In 1700 a David Irish of Stoke, Guildford, described as a “practitioner in physick and surgery,” published a book providing advice on “melancholy, phrensie, and madness” (ref. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A45776.0001.001). Page 53 contains the following text.

“This is to inform all persons whom it may concern, that D. Irish doth and will (if God permit) instruct his son in the best and speediest way of curing melancholy and madness. And likewise, those lunaticks which are not curable, he will take them for term of life, if paid quarterly; such, and all others, he takes on reasonable terms, allowing them good  fires, meat, and drink, with good attendance, and all necessaries far beyond what is allow'd at Bedlam, or any other place he has yet heard of and cheaper, for he allows the melancholly, mad, and such whose consciences are opprest with the sense of sin, good meat every day for dinner, and also wholesome diet for breakfast and supper, and good table beer enough at any time: they have also good beds and decent chambers, answerable to their abilities; all which necessaries are daily allow'd and given them according to agreement during the time agreed for they are all carefully look'd after by himself at his house in Stoke near Guilford in Surry, in a pleasant place and good air; and such as please to be at Thorp, his son looks after them by his father’s directions, who comes every Tuesday to see them, and instruct his son in the true method of curing such distemper'd people.”

It seems that David Irish treated patients at an asylum for the mentally ill at Stoke near Guildford, and his son ran a similar establishment at Thorpe, near Egham. The Berkshire Records Office contains a record of a proposed 1688 marriage between David Irish, Professor of Physic, Thorpe, Surrey, and Anne Friend of Petworth. It is reasonable to conclude that this was the son that David Irish of Stoke mentioned in his book. According to documents in the Surrey History Centre the name of the asylum at Stoke was Leapale House, Stoke next Guildford. Another private asylum is recorded at Great Foster House, Egham, which is very close to Thorpe. This asylum was managed by the Thomas and Frances Irish already mentioned, from 1767 until after Thomas’ death in 1773. Thereafter, in 1799, Frances and her son Robert Stracey Irish opened a new treatment centre at Frimley Lodge, Frimley, Surrey, with four of the original inmates transferred from Great Fosters. Robert Stracey Irish married Jane Willis, the grandchild of Eva Willis’ great-great-great-great grandfather Marmaduke Willis. This means that both Robert Stracey Irish and his wife Jane Willis were Eva’s first cousins four times removed.

The relationship between David Irish of Thorpe and Thomas and Frances Irish of Great Fosters is not certain. Thomas’ father, David Irish, was born about 1715, and he lived in Egham for the first few years of his marriage. Similarly Frances’ father, John Irish, was born about 1712 and started his married life in Chobham. It is likely that David Irish of Thorpe was their grandfather, and hence the great grandfather of both Thomas and Frances.

A further item of interest is that Frances Irish’s sister Ann married John Bartholomew, an Egham freeholder. John’s maternal grandfather, Timothy Harris, was Eva Willis’ great-great-great-great-great grandfather. He owned and resided in the Red Lion Egham, but also owned Thorpe Lea House. This raises the interesting possibility that the asylum run by David Irish of Thorpe in 1700 was actually located at Thorpe Lea House. John and Ann Bartholomew’s daughter Mary married William Willis, the proprietor of the noted Westminster society venues Willis’ Rooms (once Affleck’s Rooms) and the Thatched House Tavern.

Timothy Harris bequeathed Thorpe Lea to his daughter Ann Harris in 1747, who subsequently bequeathed it to Thomas Johnston, a draper from Staines, in 1784. Thomas was the husband of John Bartholomew’s sister Ann Bartholomew. In his will Thomas bequeathed Thorpe Lea to his wife Ann. When the will was written in 1785 it was stated that Thorpe Lea was at that time in the possession of a Dr John Irish. This could possibly have been the John Irish who married Mary Mogg of Wokingham. In practice it appears that ownership of Thorpe Lea was not passed to Ann Johnston, since the house was sold to the Blackett family in 1794, two years before Thomas died.

The diagram below depicts the various relationships and activities described above. It should be noted that some of the suggested genealogical links, although likely, cannot be confirmed.