John Davidson (Royal Navy officer)

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John Davidson

John Davidson (died 31 January 1881) was an English surgeon who served as Inspector-General of the Royal Navy and was Honorary Physician to Queen Victoria.

Career[edit]

Davidson joined the Royal Navy as an assistant surgeon on 29 July 1839, serving on HMS Nimrod when it sailed from Plymouth to the East Indies.[1] He served as surgeon-superintendent on the Lord Auckland from September 1852 to April 1853 when the ship carried convicts from Cork to Van Diemen's Land, arriving on 29 January 1853.[2]

As a deputy inspector of hospitals, he was director of the naval hospital at Therapia during the Crimean War,[3][4] sailing on the Royal Albert in 1855.[5] During the 1860s, he was medical inspector at Greenwich Hospital, London.[6] He was appointed Inspector-General of Hospitals and Fleets in July 1866.[7]

Davidson was appointed Honorary Physician to Queen Victoria in July 1874, succeeding Sir Alexander Nisbet.[8]

He died, aged 63, in 1881 and was buried in the Greenwich Hospital's cemetery (today East Greenwich Pleasaunce).[9]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "The Naval Surgeon". The Mid Victorian Royal Navy. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  2. ^ "John Davidson R.N. - Convict Ship Surgeon-Superintendent". Free Settler or Felon. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  3. ^ Helmstadler, Carol (2019). Beyond Nightingale: Nursing on the Crimean War battlefields. Manchester: Manchester University Press. ISBN 9781526140531.
  4. ^ Shepherd, John A (1991). The Crimean Doctors: A History of the British Medical Services in the Crimean War, Volume 1. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. p. 550. ISBN 9780853231677.
  5. ^ "H.M. Ships and their officers: "Mediterranean" from the Navy List, corrected to the 20th of June, 1855". Crimean War Research Society. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  6. ^ "Royal Navy Invalids and Pensioners 1866 & 1868". Ancestral Indexes. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  7. ^ "No. 23134". The London Gazette. 6 July 1866. p. 3872.
  8. ^ "Naval Medical Appointments". British Medical Journal. 25 July 1874. Retrieved 17 May 2020.
  9. ^ "EAST GREENWICH PLEASAUNCE, GREENWICH, LONDON, ENGLAND". Wartime Memorials. Retrieved 17 May 2020.