Door-to-door quack doctors were actually a thing. Part IV.
Click here for Part I of Door-to-door quacks were actually a thing (She voided a frog, a newt and two worms), here for Part II (Hezekiah Bowling was a happy man), and here for Part III (William Kirk was a new woman).
Another bottle label from the 1867 collection of papers, this time a hand-drawn sketch sent to Edward Ambler by Hezekiah Bowling or one of the Kelly brothers, for conversion into a properly engraved printed label. Within a heraldic-style shield are a royal coat of arms flanked by the intials 'V R', for Victoria Regina, and the words 'Dr. PARK'S ECLECTIC VEGETABLE MEDICINES. 22s.6d. per mixture.' Just taking inflation into account, twenty-two shillings and sixpence in 1867 was the equivalent of £100, or about US$130, in 2019.
In the beginning ...
The Preston-based travelling quack business appears to have started with the Kellys, possibly in the 1840s or earlier, with Hezekiah Bowling joining them in the early or mid-1860s. The family immigrated to England from Ireland during the 1830s, at which time all the characters referred to in Part III, and involved in the Jedburgh events, were either young children or not yet born.
The family, headed by Richard Kelly senior (c.1801–1868), father of the two brothers Richard and Augustine, initally spent some time in Staffordshire, but by 1841 they were living in South Wales (1) where Richard snr, then aged 40, was a 'Hawker'. By 1843 they were in Cardiff, where they remained for several years. In 1851 (2) the family had moved again, this time to Bury in Lancashire, before finally arriving in Preston in 1855 or 1856.
In the 1861 census Richard jnr was in Preston, describing himself as a painter, but there's no sign there of Richard snr so perhaps he was on the road: maybe he was the Richard Kelly, a ‘traveller’ born in Ireland, who was staying in a boarding house in Blackburn on the day of the census. Augustine had been described as a 'traveller' in the 1851 census, when he was only 17 years old. He seems to have moved to the north-east of England permanently in the early 1850s, after marrying there in 1853. Initally he lived in Newcastle upon Tyne, but by 1861 he was living in Sunderland, where he was a 'dealer in old clothes' (3).
This letter, sent from Sunderland by Augustine Kelly to Edward Ambler in Preston, appears to be an introduction. It suggests that Augustine, who had been living in the north-east of England since the early 1850s, may not have been involved in the medicine selling business of his father and brother before late 1867. It's dated Tuesday 24th September [1867], the year being confirmed via https://www.timeanddate.com/date/weekday.html].
Hezekiah joins the family.
Hezekiah, in contrast to the Kellys, was a native of Lancashire. Baptised in March 1843 at Samlesbury, a few miles from Preston, by 1851 he was the third of five brothers living with their mother Mary and father Thomas (a cotton spinner) in Preston. Ten years later Hezekiah was, like his father, working as a cotton spinner, but within a year or two he became involved with the Kellys: in 1863 he married Margaret (4), daughter of Richard Kelly snr and sister of Richard junior and Augustine. Whether it was the marriage that led to Hezekiah's involvement in the travelling quack business, or vice versa, isn't clear.
Either way, the 1867 letters make clear that Hezekiah was fully involved in the door-to-door medicine business by that year. At the time of the 1871 census, half way between his 1867 travels in the midlands and his 1876 brush with the law in Scotland, he was a 'Hawker' staying in a boarding house in Bishop Auckland, County Durham. He was still a ‘Hawker’ in 1891, but now travelling with his younger brother James, also a hawker, both staying with a family in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. It's unclear from the information available if he was still selling medicines then (there are suggestions that at times he may have sold fabrics, perhaps alongside medicines or perhaps as a complete departure [5]). He died in Preston in 1922, at the age of 79.
The end of the road.
At least two of the Kellys continued to sell medicines long after 1876: Richard jnr was still a 'Medical Botanist' in Preston in 1881, and a 'Herbalist' in partnership with another of his brother, Thomas, in 1891, the last reference to him I’ve so far been able to find. There are a number of newspaper references to Augustine in Sunderland between 1861 and 1875, all relating to his life, family, and used clothing business rather than selling medicines. The 1876 Jedburgh escapade is the last reference to him I’ve found.
Richard snr died in Preston in 1868. His first wife Mary died in 1864 and Richard remarried, spectacularly unsuccessfully, in 1867:
'THREE WEEKS AFTER MARRIAGE. Richard Kelly, a respectable looking elderly man, was summoned by his wife, Ann Kelly, for having used threatening language to her, in consequence of which she was in bodily fear. – The complainant said they had only been married three weeks that day (Monday). [ … ] The defendant told her that if she would marry him he would give her fourteen feather beds which he had at Preston. [ … ] She did not know where he lived: they had no settled house at present. He had sold her goods and destroyed her home at No 11, King-Street, where she kept a lodging house. – The Bench: What does he do? – Complainant: He is a quack doctor, sir. – Defendant: Excuse me, but I am a doctor, ma’am. – The Mayor (to complainant): I think he has given you a pill which it will be hard to swallow. – Defendant : I never said a word against her. I have a good home at Preston, and if she will come with me there I’ll support her as my wife. – Complainant: He took £7 worth of jewellery from me. – The Mayor (to complainant): How long did he court you? – Complainant: If it was a day it was too long. – Defendant: I have security to go bail for me. – The Mayor : Where did you pass examination as a doctor? Defendant: I passed in Dublin. – The Mayor: At what college? – Defendant: I was with Hamilton and Hills (6). – Complainant: I want nothing to do with him any more. [ … ] The Bench bound the defendant over to keep the peace for three months, himself in £20 and two sureties of £10 each. – Defendant (to complainant): Any time you want a home you can have one at my house. You can come tomorrow if you like. – Complainant: Where are those fourteen feather beds? – (Laughter).'
From The Ashton Weekly Reporter, 3rd November 1866, p6.
Richard may still have been carrying on his medicine business at the time of his 1867 marriage, although some time between then and his death in late 1868 he suffered a stroke which probably forced him to retire, if he hadn't already.
As already mentioned, Richard jnr and his brother Thomas were still 'Medical Botanists' as late as 1891, although whether they were still travelling around the country using the door-knocking-and-handbills method, or had adopted more conventional retail methods isn't clear. We also can't be sure when the Kellys, specifically Richard Kelly snr, first started selling medicines, but it is clear that he was a travelling seller of some kind of goods by as early as the 1840s. By the 1890s the Kellys may have been selling their quack medicines for upwards of half a century. As a group of quacks spanning multiple generations of a single family they were, as we shall see in a future series, by no means unique.
More widely, the door-knocking-and-handbills method of Hezekiah and the Kellys was part of a tradition that, by the time of their legal problems in Jedburgh in 1876, had endured for at least a century and possibly much longer. By the late 19th century, when the Kelly's involvement in selling quack medicines was drawing to a close, the entire tradition was probably also approaching it's end. References to active travelling quacks in newspapers and other sources become increasingly rare during the late 19th century, and virtually disappear after the turn of the 20th.
The last gasp of old fashioned door-to-door quackery in Britain seems to have been between the two world wars: during the 1930s there was occasional mention of 'Door-to-door quacks' selling glasses (7), and as late as 1932 a man prosecuted for impersonating an Excise officer appears to have more usually made a living by going 'from door to door selling medicine and embrocation' (8).
One final thought: The Kellys and Hezekiah appear to have been plying their trade as travelling medicine sellers for a number of years. There's a nine-year gap between the 1867 papers and the 1876 goings-on at Jedburgh, and there's no reason to think that they didn't occupy those nine years making a living in the same way . At least some of the participants in both episodes are known to have been either travelling hawkers or 'medical botanists', or both, for over a decade after 1876. This begs the question: how did they avoid legal problems south of the border, apparently for many years. Perhaps there were differences between Scottish and English law in play? I don't know, but would be interested to hear from anyone who does.
On the other hand mobility, and particularly "the advent of the railway", as Roy Porter observed, "gave the unscrupulous the advantage of being able to make himself scarce before his failures became obvious to all" (9). Perhaps the explanation for the Kelly's brush with the law is simply that they ignored this basic rule, and in Scotland they made the mistake of going back.
Not just bottles. In 1867 Bowling and the Kellys were selling bottled medicines, which were presumably liquid. However, many travelling quacks throughout the 18th and 19th centuries probably sold pills in boxes and powders packets as well as, or instead of, liquids in bottles. They would certainly have been easier to transport. Perhaps at some point in their careers the Kellys and Hezekiah did, too. Here's a group of 19th and early 20th century wooden pill boxes that once contained popular and widely sold patent medicine pills including, amongst others, Ching's Worm Lozenges, Cockle's Antibilious Pills, Whelpton's Vegetable Pills, Doctor Fothergill's Female Pills, Morison's Pills, Anderson's Scott's Pills, and Widow Welch's Female Pills. The round box near the top right, for Blair's Gout and Rheumatic Pills, still has the original pamphlet, or 'bill of directions', wrapped around the outside. At top left a ceramic pot for Morison's Vegetable Universal Ointment sneaks into the picture.
Notes and References.
1. Census return, 1841.
2. Census return, 1851.
3. Durham County Advertiser, 5th July 1861. From britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, accessed 10th Nov. 2017.
4. Hezekiah Bowling's marriage, 1862. From Civil Registration Marriage Index 1837 - 1915, on ancestry.co.uk. Accessed 3rd February 2018. Thanks to Sue Lane for providing the additional information that his wife was, in fact, Margaret Kelly, sister of Richard and Augustine.
5. Thanks again to Sue Lane, for bringing the fabric-salesman possibilities to my attention.
6. I’ve been unable to find any reference to any such college, medical practice, or anything similar in 19th century Dublin. Did ‘Hamilton and Hills’ actually exist, or was Richard Kelly telling porkies? If anyone knows one way or the other, please let me know.
7. 'Door-to-Door quacks. Warning against canvassing opticians.', in The Beds & Herts Pictorial of 7th April 1931 is one example, among several from the 1920s and '30s. From britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, accessed 10th January 2021.
8. The Burnley Express, 13th April 1932. From britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, accessed 10th January 2021.
9. Porter (2000). Quacks. pp94-95.
© Jeremy Kemp, 2021.
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