A dynasty of doctors over seven decades

Reverend George Roberts was not the only significant figure at the birth of Brixham’s rugby club 150 years ago. St Mary’s graveyard has a plot that bears the inscription ‘George C Searle, 74, Died 16 December 1919. Surgeon of this parish for over 40 years.’
When the Brixham & Churston Football Club embarked on its first season in 1875, Dr George Clements Searle had just turned 30 and not only took the field as a forward but also served as Honorary Secretary and Treasurer.
As we will discover further on, matchday casualties among teammates and opponents alike were glad of his first-aid skills too.
Our efforts to trace the origins of the club have uncovered Dr Searle’s name in one of the first documented match reports, published by the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette on 28 November 1876.
The opposition was the formidable Newton College, and since both sides named 14 players, it is reasonable to assume that Rev Roberts and his opposite number had agreed to field one player short of the 15 allowed. A reduction from 20 players had been introduced across the club game in 1876 – although England continued to play 20-a-side at international level until 1877.
The Brixham team lined up as follows: Backs – Dames and Hamlyn; three-quarter back – Turner; half-backs – G W Searle and Martin; forwards – Cobley, Ryder, May, G C Searle, Salisbury, Spurdens, Collins, Roberts (captain) and Carlile.
Thanks to a chance contact on Facebook with Jane Rimmer, great-granddaughter of G C Searle, we now know very much more about George and his family’s long association with rugby in Brixham. It takes us all the way through to 1933 when his son-in-law and Jane’s grandfather, Dr Robert Busher Thompson, was club president and Bernard Astley so generously and far-sightedly secured a permanent home for rugby in the town.
One thing we were able to clear up with Jane’s help was the presence of a second Searle (G W) against Newton College. We are confident now that they were not brothers or even close relatives, Searle being a fairly common South Devon name.

Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 25 Nov 1876
George would readily tog out for other clubs when the opportunity arose. Three weeks before he appeared for Brixham against Newton College, we find him listed in a Totnes team that won at Paignton. According to the Western Morning News, ‘the game was a remarkably pleasant and good- tempered one throughout’. Not always the case obviously.
A year later he was guesting at Paignton for Rougemont (Exeter) when a home player suffered a serious shoulder injury in the final minute. The Torquay Times of 8 December 1877 reported that the victim ‘received the attention of Mr Searle, of Brixham, who was playing in the match, and he is now progressing favourably’.

Torquay Times, 8 Dec 1877

It was reassuring to learn that the good doctor was again wearing a Brixham shirt on 1 March 1879 for a victory against Newton (Rifle) Volunteers, the earliest incarnation of Newton Abbot RFC. It is the match in which Reverend George Roberts seems to have made a reappearance after two years’ absence, presumably guesting on a flying visit.
Brixham won the toss and opted to play uphill on their Furzeham Hill ground, eventually scoring a goal when Kirk converted a try by Fox. There is reason to believe that this was John Henry Fox, celebrated after his death on 17 February 1924 as ‘probably the last of the players who made Brixham’s name famous in the Rugby code some 60 years ago’ (Western Guardian).
At this time the club competed under the name ‘Brixham Trawlers’. It was not unusual for rugby and football clubs of that era to change or embellish their names in this way, whether to indicate a nomadic existence or to reflect the character of their locality. That nickname seems to have been superseded by ‘Brixham Invincibles’ following an unbeaten season in 1880-81 when the side was led by James Seaward. He also featured in the win against Newton Volunteers in March 1879. Furzeham, convenient for catching the Great Western Railway service to away matches, remained the home ground until the move to Rea Barn in 1896, long after the doctor hung up his boots.

Western Morning News, 6 March 1879

According to family legend, George Searle was a generous, gregarious character, a man of many and varied interests beyond rugby football. As well as being an enthusiastic performer with Brixham Dramatic Society and an active member of Torquay Debating Society, he was a breeder of prizewinning cockerels and hens, and a freemason. However, even his friends might add that he did not handle money too well and that he was overly reliant on his horse ‘knowing the way home’.
George’s status as a general practitioner in the town and Medical Officer for Health naturally led to other opportunities and responsibilities. In the rank of Surgeon-Lieutenant, he served for more than 20 years as medical officer to the Devonshire (1st) Volunteer Artillery under the command of Lord Churston; also Surgeon to the Great Western Railway, the friendly society of Oddfellows and the Denaby and Cadeby Colliery Company, which operated a bunkering station at Brixham for its steamboats.
Born into a fairly well-to-do farming family in Oxfordshire, George Searle had been educated at King William’s College, a public school in the Isle of Man, before studying medicine at St George’s Hospital in London. His professional career had begun none too promisingly, however. A partnership with a Dr Allard in Tewkesbury was dissolved by mutual consent after a couple of years, with George picking up the debts. He then failed to secure a medical officer post in Nuneaton in 1871 and soon after was effectively declared bankrupt, listed among ‘Liquidations’ in the North Wilts Advertiser (7 October 1872) with an address in Egremont, Cheshire.
So his unanimous appointment as medical officer to the Board of Guardians for the district of Brixham and Churston Ferrers in the late spring of 1873 on an annual salary of £45 was truly a lifeline. It also represented a return to his maternal family’s roots.
George had been named after his mother’s father, Captain George Clements (1768-1848), owner and master of a fast-sailing, coppered schooner which plied between Genoa and Leghorn (Livorno) from London Bridge. Captain Clements, who was born near Dartington, eventually retired to Brixham with his London-born wife Elizabeth. Among those named in his will was a surgeon in the town, Charles Brooking. After Dr Brooking’s retirement, that enduring association led to the practice being offered to his friend’s grandson.
Another significant event for George and his wife Annie in the spring of 1873 was the birth of their second child Harold, brother to one-year-old Percival Bagott, known as Percy. Sadly, over the next three years Annie gave birth to two stillborn daughters and a son, Rupert, who died on the day of his birth. It was another five years before Hilda Gladys (Jane Rimmer’s grandmother) was born.
In 1886 the Searle marriage failed all too publicly when George was granted a divorce after discovering letters that showed Annie had been having an affair with a Brixham fishmonger, Alfred Wintle. To add to the trauma and disgrace, she lost custody of her children and seems to have lived in relative penury in the East End of London until her death in 1928 at the Poplar and Stepney Sick Asylum.

Totnes Times, 10 September 1898

George eventually married his housekeeper, Sarah Shaw, while the children got on with their lives as best they could. Harold joined the 21st Lancers and at Omdurman in the Sudan took part in the last horseback charge by a full regiment of the British Army, with one Winston S Churchill among their ranks. Harold, having seen comrades killed and injured either side of him, was a reluctant hero and could not wait to pawn the gold watch presented by the people of Brixham. Apparently, he left Brixham ‘under a cloud’ and, like his unfortunate mother, spent the rest of his life in obscurity.
Percy, the eldest, had inherited his father’s love of sport and played cricket at Devon County School (now West Buckland School) where he was head boy in 1889. He then studied medicine at Edinburgh University before joining the family practice for a short time, possibly in the wake of his father falling-out with yet another practice partner in 1894.
This time it was an Irish-born doctor called George Blacker Elliott, who accused the older man of fraud, leading to the inevitable break-up of the partnership. Dr Elliott, who had succeeded his partner as Medical Officer for Health, went on to become equally well regarded in the town.

Dr George Blacker Elliott when president of Brixham Rugby Club in 1896-97 season.

He was a keen sportsman, notably as a cricketer and golfer, and became president of Brixham Rugby Club in the 1890s. An obituary in the Western Guardian following Dr Elliott’s unexpected death on 20 March 1920 described him as one of the club’s ‘most ardent enthusiasts’.
After volunteering for the Army Medical Corps during the Great War, rising to the rank of Major, he later became a champion for trawlermen pursuing grievances over their demobilisation from the Royal Naval Reserve. As Medical Officer of Health he gained a reputation for carrying out his duties ‘most fearlessly’ and being ‘very candid and straight to the point’ in his reports on sanitation and public health, particularly with regard to measures to contain infectious disease
With daughter Hilda helping out on the dispensing side, George Searle had continued to run the practice at No 9 Bolton Street single-handedly until 1911 when he appointed the newly-qualified Robert Busher Thompson as partner. This arrangement persisted for a couple of years until Hilda duly became Mrs Thompson, allowing her father to retire to Berry Head Road only for his second wife Sarah to die a year later aged just 55.
George continued to serve as a diligent chairman of the Brixham Education Committee, taking a keen interest in the welfare of schools, until his resignation due to failing health in October 1918.
Following his death just before Christmas 1919 at the age of 74, George’s distinctive signet ring passed to his eldest son. In the absence of any picture of George Searle, the image of Percy in maritime uniform wearing the ring is a rare photographic link to the father. It is believed to date from a period in Percy’s career when he was employed as a ship’s surgeon.
Although Percy shared George’s love of rugby it seems that he did not play for Brixham, opting instead to turn out for Torquay Athletic

Dr Searle’s signet ring, as worn by his son and Percy in merchant navy uniform sporting the ring.
[Pictures courtesy of Jane Rimmer]

Some years later his name appeared in correspondence in the Western Guardian regarding which ‘Brixhamites’ had played for Devon, seemingly without drawing a distinction between those who had been born or raised in the town and those who played for the Brixham club.
In reply to “Albionite,” Summers is not the first Brixhamite who has played for the county. Dr Percy Searle, the eldest son of Dr G. C. Searle, played for Devon during a tour in South Wales against Newport and Llanelly. That was many years ago. Dr Percy Searle played centre three-quarter for Torquay Athletic, and was one of the smartest players in the County. [Brixham Western Guardian, 1 December 1904]
Dr Thompson, having taken over as Medical Officer of Health when Dr Elliott went off to war, had thrown himself into life in Brixham as enthusiastically as any of his predecessors. As a medic he took an active interest in improving and modernising facilities at Brixham Hospital, but he was a prominent figure in the wider community too and not just because he was one of the first people in the town to have a motor car, instantly recognisable in his Model T Ford.

Dr R B Thompson, pictured around 1930 in the garden of his home, Fellside.
[Picture courtesy of Jane Rimmer]

For many years, he was Steward of the Brixham Torbay Royal Regatta and one of the early members of the Brixham Yacht Club, as well as being commandant of the Brixham Men’s Voluntary Aid Detachment.
A notable personal achievement was to help found the Brixham Swimming and Life-Saving Society, spurred on by his horror at discovering that most trawlermen could not swim! By 1937, the society had cleared the debt on its hut at Shoalstone pool and achieved the highest number of intermediate and bronze life-saving certificates in the Torbay area.
Robert Busher Thompson was an avid sportsman when growing up in the Lake District but not a rugby player, says his granddaughter. That did not prevent him from becoming president of Brixham Rugby Club, however. Fortunately, it was a time of renewal at Astley Park, both on and off the field.
Reporting on the annual general meeting of the club held on 11 May 1932 under the headline ‘SIGNS OF REVIVAL AT BRIXHAM’, the Western Morning News recorded that it had been an excellent season, with the Devon Senior Cup won for only the second time in the club’s history and the Reserves reaching the final of the Devon Junior Cup. Dr R Busher Thompson was elected president at the meeting. His son William – Jane’s father – was having trials for the club at this time.

All this optimism was given renewed impetus in August 1933 when a personal gift from local resident Bernard Astley JP ensured that New Great Park football field could be conveyed to Brixham Urban Council for the free use of the rugby club in perpetuity. Dr Thompson was still club president in September 1934, toasting Brixham Reserves as winners of the Devon Junior Cup and presenting victory caps to the players.
After he had the satisfaction of seeing a new wing added to Brixham Hospital on 12 August 1936 Dr Thompson was temporarily recalled to the post of Medical Officer of Health in 1937 and again at the outbreak of the Second World War. Instead of enjoying a well-earned retirement, he died at the age of 56 on 2 December 1940.
The funeral three days later attracted an appropriately large congregation to Brixham Parish Church, but Hilda was not among them. She had died seven years earlier aged 52.