A Country Doctor (Dr Richard Rice)

“No weather ever stopped him. He went pounding away on his bicycle over the bare unsheltered Downs, from village to village, against the gale, head bent over the handlebars, in the driving rain with the drops falling from the ends of his moustache, his gaitered legs splashed with white chalky mud.

You met him at all times and seasons and hours pushing his machine sturdily up the steep hills, free-wheeling down them, always giving a cheery greeting to everyone, for everyone knew him throughout the big district he covered in his rounds. It was astonishing how he ever got those rounds done. He was ubiquitous in a dozen villages, to say nothing of the lonely houses away up on the Downs with scarce a road leading to them, and that road as good as a ploughed field any time from October to March.

No suave spoken man this. He walked into a cottage, as rough as the weather outside. He could give grim and fearful greetings at times, nevertheless they liked him, because they understood him and his plain speaking. They knew all the time that his heart was softer than his tongue; he would scold them at times but did it so cheerily they took it as an ordinary expression of goodwill. A Doctor who would sit patiently for hours in a shepherd’s cottage up on the Downs waiting for a child to be born, and who would not take more than 5s. for the same could never be a heartless man.”

(From A Downland Corner, by the Reverend Victor L. Whitchurch. 1912)

Those who knew Dr Richard Rice, a much-loved doctor and Harwell figure, easily recognized him as the model for this character. He commenced practice in Harwell in 1882, and retired in 1945 at the age of eighty-six. It was said of him that during the whole of this period he had not had a holiday nor had he been away from duty for a single day. He was friend and doctor to succeeding generations of patients for sixty-two years.

The eldest son of the Reverend Richard Rice, vicar of Little Barrington, Gloucestershire, Dr Rice qualified in 1879. After being an assistant in South Wales, he returned to hospital for further study. In 1882 he took over Dr Newman’s practice at Harwell, which included the parishes of Didcot, Chilton, Blewbury and Upton. He also had patients at Wantage, Hanney, Dray ton, Compton, East and West Ilsley, East and West Hendred, Milton and Steventon. He held a number of official medical appointments.

In his early days he covered his rounds on horseback, or by pony and trap. He was a keen follower of the Old Berks Hunt, and enjoyed his country rides; if jumps offered a shorter route he took them with zest. He estimated that he had ridden over 100,000 miles on horseback. Later he rode a bicycle, and finally drove in a car with a chauffeur, Mr Gee, late of Harwell. Until the outbreak of war in 1939 he was a medical officer to the Royal Air Force at Milton, and the Royal Army Ordnance Corps at Didcot. His first partner was Dr Margaret Cowen (?later Weir) in 1923; others were Dr John Chitty and Dr A. Armitage Beazeley.

His interest in the life of Harwell never flagged. Dearest to him, perhaps, was the Parish Church, where a plaque commemorates his twenty-one years as a churchwarden; in the last ten years he was also a vicar’s warden. He had also been secretary of the Parochial Church Council, choirmaster and a member of the choir. He was one of the first members of Harwell Parish Council.

At the annual village sports he always acted as one of the judges, his favourite contest being the tug-of-war. In his early days he was a member of the voluntary Harwell fire brigade, and was one of those on duty when Didcot station was burnt down in 1886. For the last twenty years of his life he was president of the local branch of the British Legion. “His life was a record of public usefulness and he never spared himself. He was a friend of anyone in need.” (Canon E. J. Evans)

The doctor in Travels Round Our Village by Eleanor Hayden was also modelled on Dr Rice:

“A doctor well-known in the district, was riding over a wild stretch of down, when he came across a fold and stopped to exchange a few words with the guardian. The shepherd inhabited a desolate cottage far removed from any other dwelling, and the physician further proceeded to enquire how the lonely family managed to obtain medical assistance in time of illness.

‘Well sir,’ replied the shepherd in all good faith, ‘we dwun’t ha’ no doctor; we just dies a nat’ral death.’”

Comments

• R G Ross Viner –
  20 Jul 2008
  Hello from Canada,Dr Richard Rice was my grandfather. I was privilidged to live with him for about 14 years, 1933 to 1947. These stories describe the man that I knew. He was gruff in his own way. but a kinder man and greater doctor would be hard to find. I went to live with him in about 1933 along with my mother, his daughter, and my three older sisters. We spent many afternoons riding in the car, with Bert Gee driving, going all over the downs, visiting his patients. Sometimes it was a little boring, and this is when Bert would bring out some sweeties. Berts shop was just across the road from “The Poplars”and I used to spend quite a lot of time there,as he seemed to hire all the good looking girls in Harwell !!!I sang in the church choir, and he made sure he could keep an eye on me by seating me right in front of him, if he was reading the lesson and I misbehaved then Walter Hitchman took over, and he could reach my head with a hymn book.

  After I came to Canada, my mother Gwendolyn Viner, went around the village, and recorded the voices of a lot of people that I had known growing up in Harwell, they are too numerous to name, but she finished the tape with a peel of the church bells I think this was arranged with a man whose last name was Jordan. Mr Jordan also took my son and I up to the roof of the church tower, where we scratched our names in the lead roof, is it still there?

  I was a lucky lad to have lived with the “Doctor” in Harwell, I think all the residents sort of looked after me because I was his grandson, regardless ,I have many many memories wonderful memories , of the village all who lived there at the time and of course life at “The Doctors”, with all the family.

  Names that come to mind, Bosely{many of them]Miss Clarkie and Pillar house school,the Lays[ many of them also]Colonel Hazel and family, Jack and Mimi Storr, the Blisset families in The white city I still keep in touch with “Our Joe”, everyone at the Chequers, and The Kicking donkey [Margaret Hamblin],Caudwells, Mulfords, Bakers, Drewitts, Mitchels, Fosbury’s, Greenwoods, Connely family[ Jill] June Turner, The Kings, Woodalls, Powells, Tyrells, Coombes, DeFries, Bouchers, Loring, Palmers, Kemps, Moody’s, Smith, Halls, Jordan, Hitchman, Priors, Ellis’s, Freeman, Jeffries and so on, what a wonderful village Harwell is.

  This is supposed to be just a comment, but once I started I got carried away,

  Many thanks to all of you,

  Ross Viner, and his wife Bev who kept an eye on my grammar etc as I wrote this!!

• Clive Ledger –
  23 Dec 2009
  Excellent website!The Albert “Bert” GEE mentioned as the chauffeur in this article was married to an ancestor of mine, Dorothy Mary Mabel WHITE at Harwell in 1923. A daughter, Hilary Caroline Margaret GEE was born at Harwell in 1925. Dorothy was the parish nurse, and passed away in 1939, residing at “Wells Head” at the time.Dorothy’s sister, Elizabeth Georgina “Georgie” SEBIRE (nee WHITE), joined them along with her husband John Peter William SEBIRE, and daughter Catherine Bessie SEBIRE after they had to flee Alderney in 1940. Catherine and Hilary attended St Helens School, Abingdon. The SEBIRE’s moved to East Hendred and Hillary married Arthur Victor JENNINGS c. 1945 and ended up in Liverpool.

  Would love to hear from anyone with any more information about these families and their time in the beautiful village of Harwell.

• My Great (in more ways than one!) Grandfather
  Kim Clark (nee Wilcox) –
  11 Feb 2012
  Dr Richard Rice was my great Grandfather – but I never had the pleasure of meeting him. I am lucky to still have my Uncle Ross in Canada who can tell me stories about him and their lives at the Poplars (now called Wellshead House) in Harwell Village. I, too, lived a the Poplars with my mother, Gillian Wilcox (nee Viner), Dr Rice’s eldest granddaughter, my father, Jack “Blondie” Wilcox, my sister, Kate, my grandmother – Evelyn Gwen Viner (nee Rice) (Dr Rice’s daughter), Great Auntie Mary (also his daughter), Sally Saxby (nee Viner)(his granddaughter) and her husband Bernard “Sax”Saxby. Wow, did we have a good time there! There were so many stories told of the “old days” – we giggled at the thought of the grandchildren – Gillian, Jacqueline, Sally and Ross being sent up to the attic to get applies – although Grandpa knew they were frightened and would tell them ghost stories – which were then re told to us as children! The whole house was steeped in family memories and stories which we will never forget.