I’m Related to History’s Most Notorious Quack Doctor… & A Famous Poet!
Secrets of my ancestors
Researching your family history has become an increasingly popular past-time in recent years, with TV shows, magazines and websites all dedicated to the hobby. But back in the 1970s, when my dad started researching our family tree, I thought it was BORING!
As a young family, we used to spend hours in graveyards looking for the gravestones of long-lost ancestors. My sisters and I were far more interested in some of the dramatic angel statues and in chasing butterflies!
It took decades for my dad to complete his family tree, and we were all eventually awarded a copy of it about thirty years later. It turned out to be not so boring after all, and contains some interesting and enlightening details about my ancestors.
My great, great grandfather was Henry James Byron, the actor and playwright, second cousin to Lord Byron, the famous Victorian poet. I am also related to Samuel Solomon — one of the most notorious, and successful, quack doctors of all time.
My dad’s research was painstaking. He spent hours and hours, year in, year out, looking through old census records, birth and death registers, and records of baptism from different churches, as he tracked down our relatives, one at a time. Most of his research was conducted in the days before the internet existed so it was slow and laborious.
The highlights
My family tree is a vibrant mix of poor and wealthy. One of my ancestors was involved in running the workhouses, while others were destitute and living in the workhouses.
Some of my ancestors had servants, while others were servants! But I’ll skip to the most interesting bit — my mother’s descendants from the 17th and 18th centuries.
The Byrons — literary greats
Henry James Byron, known as James (born 1834), was a playwright, dramatist and actor. He was my great, great grandfather. At the age of 14, he was so impressed by a pantomime he saw a Covent Garden, London, that he spent two days writing a three act drama of his own, which he offered to a West End theatre — without success.
He dabbled in medicine, but then rejected the medical profession to pursue a career as an actor and playwright. His first play, ‘The Boots at The George’, was performed in The Little Buxton Theatre when he was 18.
He worked long hours for low pay and on occasion he had to play 18 parts in one week as well as sing humorous songs between the acts. He studied law for a while, but later said law bored him. He was highly creative and edited some comic magazines, wrote dramas, articles and essays, and became involved in theatre management.
In 1857, at the age of 23, he hit the big time, with a burlesque play called ‘Richard Coeur de Lion’ performed at the Strand Theatre. Charles Dickens became a fan of his work, and another of his dramas, ‘Our Boys’, achieved the unprecedented run of 1362 performances over four years, reaching worldwide acclaim.
Literary talent ran in the family. His second cousin was Lord Byron, the famous poet, who lived a life of aristocratic excesses, and then died at the age of 36 in 1824 from a fever — ten years before James was born.
Henry James Byron wrote 150 dramas and comedies, and lived the high life moving between different houses across London and the countryside. In 1882 he retired on medical grounds.
His lavish lifestyle, combined with unaffordable generosity, and a couple of poor theatrical investments, meant that by the time he died of tuberculosis in 1884, at the age of 50, he was a poor man.
The 18th and 19th century ‘doctors’
Another interesting and somewhat eccentric ancestor of mine, was James Byron Bradley, born in 1790. He was my four times great grandfather, and a doctor of medicine.
During a London cholera epidemic in the early part of the 19th century, he played a major role in tackling the disease and was offered a knighthood by the king, but he declined and accepted a medal instead. Then in 1845, when he lived in Buxton, he wrote a booklet on how Buxton Springwater could cure gout and rheumatism.
James Byron Bradley’s father-in-law (my five times great-grandfather) was Samuel Solomon, a world-renowned quack doctor, who was born in Cork, Republic of Ireland, in 1745.
At the age of 23 Samuel moved to Dublin and opened a shop selling health remedies, marketing them through newspaper adverts, around the world. He claimed to be a medical doctor but his degree came from a college that awarded degrees for payment and it was even suspected that the certificates were forged.
In the 1790s he moved to Liverpool. His most popular medicine was called Solomon’s Cordial Balm of Gilead. It had a large following and was said to be a bit of a cure all.
Agents sold his balm across the world, claiming it originated from Gilead, preserved in Judea in 1730 BC and was brought to England by means of a ‘secret correspondence with the Honourable East India company’. It was said to contain pure gold.
His other popular remedies included Abstergent Lotion, and Dr Solomon’s Anti-impetigines.
Assisting the sale of the medicines was Dr Solomon’s famous book ‘A guide to health’. First published around 1795, it ran to a 66th edition in 1817 and sold over 120,000 copies.
By 1804 he was a rich man, living in a country mansion and riding a carriage pulled by four horses. He sat for Madame Tussaud, but when she masked his face for the mould, she forgot to make holes for his nose and mouth. He couldn’t breathe, so he tore off the mask and refused to cooperate after that.
Streets near his former home were named after him in 1864 as a mark of respect. Samuel Solomon is one of history’s most famous quack doctors from the early days of modern medicine.
Dr Solomon’s son, Abraham, qualified in medicine through Edinburgh University in 1819. But his father’s reputation went before him and no one would employ him or consult him. Such was the stigma surrounding his father, that he was forced to return to Liverpool and sell Balm of Gilead for a living instead.
Doing the research
Dad explained: “Birth marriage and death certificates were issued from 1837, and censuses began in 1841. These two sources of information are very valuable to anyone researching their family tree.
“For ancestors before then, you’re dependent on church records, which are not as well organised, or as well indexed. I went to London to view the census records as part of my research, and went to the Central Registry at Somerset House to see the wills of our ancestors.
“Baptismal records were kept in the county record offices, and so were some of the wills executed before 1840. I was travelling all around the UK, trying to piece together bits of our family history.
“One of the biggest challenges was identifying individuals with a common name, like John Smith, because there are so many of them, and it’s hard to identify your own relative from among the masses.
“In the later stages of my research, I was able to go online and use www.ancestry.co.uk. They have all sorts of records available for reference and when it became possible to look up indexes and order certificates online, I started to do it that way instead of continually going up to London.”
© Susie Kearley 2023. All Rights Reserved.
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