Thomas McCulloch
| Major Thomas McCulloch RAMC | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Born | 1861 | ||||||
| Died | 1915 | ||||||
| Residence |
War Office, Pall Mall, SW 68 Victoria Street, SW [1905] | ||||||
| Occupation | armed services | ||||||
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Contents
Notes
Office Notes
House Notes
Proposed by John Gray; seconded by F.C. Shrubsall 1904.10.25
Lieut. Col. in 1913 list
death noted in the report of the council for 1917
Notes From Elsewhere
Thomas Campbell McCulloch was born on the 4th May 1861 at East Sanquhar Cottage, within the parish of St Quivox, Ayr, Scotland. He was the son of Thomas and Mary McCulloch (nee Fergus) and at the time of his birth his father was employed as a ploughman.
By the time of the 1881 census of Scotland, Thomas’s father has presumably died and his mother was then married to Andrew Campbell and the family are living in 9 Suffolk Street, Glasgow St James, Lanarkshire where Thomas is listed as a medical student. Thomas was a student at Glasgow University and achieved his medical qualifications of M.B. Mast. Surg on 7th August 1884 and C.M. with commendation.
Thomas entered the Army as a probationary surgeon on 5th February 1887. His medical registration of 1887 records him as working at the Royal Victoria Military Hospital at Netley, Hampshire. The Royal Victoria Military Hospital based on the shores of Southampton Water was the home of the Medical School for the Army Medical Services and Thomas was probably there in a training capacity, as a probationary surgeon.
According to his Army service record, in 1888 Thomas was based at Woolwich, London. This would probably be The Royal Herbert Military Hospital, Shooters Hill, London and was a fairly short posting as Thomas was due to be posted abroad fairly soon.
On 5th February 1899 he was promoted Major in the RAMC, and on the 23rd May 1890, Thomas was posted to Mauritius where he was probably based at The Civil Hospital, St Louis. This hospital had a military wing that was known as the Civil Military Hospital. It was destroyed by a violent cyclone in 1892 that also killed 11,000 people and destroyed 3,000 homes. It is documented in Thomas's official record at the Army Medical Services archive that he was officially thanked for the assistance he gave during the aftermath of the cyclone and also with an outbreak of enteric (typhoid) fever.
He married to Cecilia Maude French, who is the daughter of Robert James French, the Archbishop of Mauritius. It seems possible that they met in Mauritius and may have married there. Thomas arrived back in Britain from Mauritius on the 21st October 1894. Thomas and Cecilia gave birth to their first child, Robert Arthur Douglas McCulloch in 1895 in Dover.
Thomas served in the Third China War when he was Mentioned in Dispatches in the London Gazette of 13th September 1901. On 16th September 1897 Thomas left for the Punjab in India, and on 5th October 1899, Thomas was promoted to the rank of Major. On 11th October 1900, Thomas left the Punjab bound for the North of China where he served in the Third China War (also known as the Boxer Rebellion). He was to be part of the Eight Nation Alliance which consisted of Armies from Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, The United Kingdom and the United States.
On the 28th July 1901, Thomas left China to return to the Punjab in India and the Eight Nation Alliance ultimately quashed the Boxer Rebellion on the 7th September 1901. Thomas left the Punjab on 27 April 1902 bound for the United Kingdom.
In the London Gazette of 13th September 1901, Thomas was Mentioned in Dispatches as working with the Indian Army in North China. He was awarded the China Medal for services during the Boxer Rebellion. On 1st May 1902, Thomas became the Deputy Assistant Director General of the Army Medical Services, a title he held until 30th April 1906. In 1905, Cecilia and Thomas had their second son, Thomas Cecil, who was born in Eltham, London.
On 7th April 1906, Thomas left for Malta with Colonel David Bruce as a new member of the Mediterranean Fever Commission, where he would work in Valetta with other military doctors on the investigation of Mediterranean fever. They reviewed the incidence of Malta Fever from 1902 and gathered information on the prevalence of the fever in units, its occurrence in the different barracks, and its relation to simple continued fever and enteric fever. They confirmed the role played by the goat in the spread of disease and the importance of milk as a causative agent. The decline in the incidence of Malta fever after June 1906 was due to the substitution of goat's milk by condensed milk.
While in Malta, Major McCulloch was admitted to Cottonera Hospital with phlebitis of his leg and returned to England on 26th September 1906 on the Postal and Oriental Steamer Caledonia. The London Gazette of the 15th June 1906 announced that ‘The King has been graciously pleased to sanction Major Thomas McCulloch, R.A.M.C. as a Knight of Grace of The Grand Priory of the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in England'. This is an Order of Chivalry of the British Crown with many members around the world. Thomas travelled back to the United Kingdom from Malta on 8th October 1906 where he remained before travelling to North India on 9th March 1907.
On the 29th July 1911, Thomas was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel which was also the date that he arrived back in the United Kingdom from North India. His oldest son, Robert Arthur Douglas, a 2nd Lieutenant with the Lancashire Fusiliers was killed in action on 3rd May 1915, during the battle of Ypres. 2nd Lieutenant McCulloch has no known grave and is commemorated at the Menin Gate Memorial, France.
A short while after the death of his son, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas McCulloch became a patient at the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital, Cosham, Portsmouth, where on the 25th June 1915 he died from heart disease. At the time of his death he was working as a surgeon at the Queen Victoria Military Hospital, where he is buried. Thomas’s wife Cecilia Maude McCulloch died on the 22nd July 1965 in St Albans, Hertfordshire and is also buried in the Netley Military Cemetery with her husband.
