Richard White (1819-1892) & Anne Marie Freeman (1820-1888)
Richard White was born on 9 March 1819, and baptised on 13 June at Ashdon in Essex. He was the son of Richard White – then aged 67 and a well-off yeoman farmer – and his second wife Rebekah Ruse.
Richard was educated at a parson’s school in the village and “privately” at Saffron Walden. He became a pupil of James Robinson, then a well-known dental surgeon in London. In the early C18th there was no professional certification or licencing required to become a dentist, and most probably Richard learned as an apprentice – which had also been the case with James Robinson.
By 1841 Richard was living in Great Yarmouth where he was practising as a dentist at his residence in Theatre Plain – he advertised in the Norfolk newspapers as having “received Testimonials of qualification to practice, in every department of Dental Surgery, from Professor Bell FRS &c &c Surgeon Dentist to Guy’s Hospital, and James Robinson Esq MRCS, Surgeon Dentist to the Metropolitan Hospital”. Bell and Robinson were early advocates of formal training and became leading figures in raising dentistry to the rank of a profession and codifying a dental qualification.
(image from British Dental Association Museum)
In 1843 Richard set up a dental business in Tuck’s Court at 39 St Giles Street, Norwich, which was the centre of dentists and surgeons in Norwich. He described himself as a “surgeon dentist, St Giles Street, Norwich, home daily from ten to five, with the exception of Wednesday, on which day he attends professionally at his rooms, Theatre Plain, Yarmouth” (Norfolk Chronicle 1843). The Yarmouth & Norwich Railway opened in 1844 becoming part of the Norwich & Brandon Railway in 1845, and this presumably enabled Richard to work in both locations.
In 1844, Richard published a pamphlet called Advice on the Management of Teeth. The Forceps Journal of Dentistry (a short lived publication which lasted from 1844 to 1845, established by James Robinson – as one of the first ever journals of dentistry) said: “We must, in conclusion, congratulate Mr White upon the ability he had shewn, both as a writer and a reasoner”. The pamphlet was dedicated to Arthur Tawke, MD Oxon, who was then a prominent doctor in Norwich.
Thus, at the age of 25 he had established himself as being knowledgeable and well connected – perhaps an indication of his both his ability as a dentist and his commercial acumen.
Anne Maria Freeman was born on 1 June 1820, and baptised at St Andrew’s Norwich on 6 July 1820, where the records listed her as the daughter of William Freeman, a carver and gilder, and Elizabeth (“late E Barnes spinster”). Her grandfather, father, and brother were all closely associated with the Norwich School of Artists alongside their successful carving and gilding manufacturing business. Her father was high sheriff of Norwich in 1842-43 and then mayor 1843-44.
In 1841, Anne Maria was living with her parents at Heigham Villa.
On 31 July 1845, Richard White (bachelor, surgeon dentist of St Gregory’s, son of Richard White gentleman) married Anne Maria Freeman (spinster, of Heigham, daughter of William Freeman gentleman) at the parish church in the hamlet of Heigham. The witnesses were “William Freeman, Elizabeth Hogarth, Will P B Freeman jnr, Joshua Freeman, Elizabeth Ackerman, Phoebe Freeman, Ellen Freeman”.
It is likely that Richard and Anne Maria lived first at or close to the dental practice in St Giles as their eldest children were baptised at the parish church of St Gregory: Ellen Annie Maria born on 25 April 1846 between 1:00 and 2:00 am, Richard Wentworth on 3 September 1847 at 9:00 pm, Ada Felicia on 12 March 1849 at 2:40 am, Ernest William on 22 January 3:40 am.
By 1851 the family had moved to “The Woodlands”, one of the principal houses in the village of Stoke Holy Cross, some five miles south of Norwich. Edward Arthur was born on 3 June 1852 at 1:30am, Annie Maria on 19 May 1854 at 10:35pm, Percy Harry on 25 December 1855 at 6:10pm, Henry Freeman on 11 September 1857 at 11:45pm.
In the late 1850s the family moved to Heigham (living on Unthank Road), where Anne Maria’s family lived and where Richard’s mother was also living. Jane Elizabeth was born on 26 May 1859 at 1:15am, Gertrude on 12 December 1860 at 4:15am.
In the early 1860s the family moved to Heathfield House, where their two youngest daughters were born: Edith on 27 December 1862 at 10:40am and Bertha on 25 March 1864 at 7:45am.
Heathfield House was on the Ipswich Road in the Town Close area on the edge of Norwich city centre. It was a grand suburban home, and was testiment to Richard and Anne Maria’s prosperity.
A later description: “a spacious entrance hall, paved with Minton tiles, drawing and dining rooms, each 22ft by 25ft into bay with large bays facing south, breakfast room, two staircases, six bed and dressing and bath rooms on the first floor, and four servants’ room and box room over. Stable, with loose box and two stalls, carriage house and harness room, yard, &c, pleasure grounds, comprising a park-like lawn, well planted with trees and shrubs, kitchen, and flower gardens, vinery, orchard house …containing 2¾ acres. [Also] a valuable piece of land adjoining containing about 2 acres, partly cultivated as a kitchen garden.”
Over this time as Richard’s dental practice grew in size and prosperity, he was also following advances in the profession. In 1846 James Robinson was the first person to carry out general anaesthesia with ether in Britain when he administered ether to a patient undergoing a tooth extraction. In 1847 (27 November) Richard wrote a letter to the Norwich Mercury about “chloroform or perchloride of formyle, a substitute for ether in surgical operations” outlining how that morning he had “operated with this new anaesthetic agent”.
In 1849, Richard placed advertisements in the Norfolk News saying that “Mr White, surgeon dentist of St Giles’ Street Norwich, attends at his house in Theatre Street, Yarmouth, every Thursday and at the Red Lion Inn, Fakenham, the first Monday in every month”. In 1851 he advertised that he “regrets to inform his West Norfolk patients, in consequence of the increase of his professional engagements in Norwich, he will be unable to continue his monthly attendance at Fakenham; but in future will visit that town quarterly” (Norfolk News 1 March 1851). The 1851 census recorded him as employing two assistants. In 1854, when a Mr Hay was advertising as dentist in the Norwich Mercury, he stated he had been “five years principal assistant to Mr White”.
In 1860 Richard was one of the first dentists to be awarded the Licence in Dental Surgery (LDS) following examination; this diploma was the first British dental qualification and was awarded by the Royal College of Surgeons which had been granted a new Royal Charter in 1859 (following the 1858 Medical Act) including the power to establish such a qualification. The 1861 census (when the family were living at Unthanks Road, Heigham) recorded him as a “Dentist Licentiate Royal College of Dental Surgeons”.
Richard was also active in the Odonatological Society from the mid-1850s, and was a council member for some years (until the 1880s).
In the 1850s Richard was listed as a shareholder and director (deputy chairman) of the National Economic Hail Storm Assurance Company, which provided insurance for farmers, as well as a shareholder in the Unity Fire Insurance Association.
In 1857, he advertised for let, with immediate possession, “a farm, consisting of sixty acres of good arable and pastureland, with a farmhouse, nearly new, and convenient premises, situated four miles from the market town of Saffron Walden”. Presumably this was the family farm in Essex, as by 1851, his mother Rebekah had moved to Heigham, Norwich.
A further sign of how dentistry and medicine had moved on since Richard’s early years was the education that Richard and Anne Maria’s sons received (though no information is given on the daughters’ education). Family records noted that Richard Wentworth (also known as Dick or Wenty) and Ernest William both attended St Gregory’s School in Norwich followed by King Edward VI School in Bury St Edmunds. They both studied at King’s College London. Richard Wentworth became a Licentiate in Dental Surgery (LDS) in 1869 and MRCS in 1870. Ernest William won three scholarships and was a gold medallist in anatomy and becoming MRCS (1872) and MRCP (1884) and pursued a career in psychological medicine.
Edward Arthur (also known as Ned) went to Norwich Grammar School and qualified as a medical doctor from Aberdeen in 1878. Percy was educated at Norwich Grammar School and the University of Edinburgh and became a MRCS Eng. Henry Freeman pursued his medical studies at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospitals followed by St George’s Hospital and the Dental Hospital Leicester Square, London, and then at a practice in Bruton Street, Berkeley Square.
Richard was joined in his practice by his eldest son, Richard Wentworth White in the early 1870s.
On 10 September 1874 there was an appalling railway accident at Thorpe when the 8:40 pm mail train from Yarmouth was hit by an express train from Norwich which “dashed into it with a fearful velocity, the terrible force of the collision causing in a moment of time a scene of wreck and ruin such as has seldom been witnessed”; “Mr Richard Wentworth White, dentist, St Giles [and others] were with much labour, after the lapse of two or three hours, liberated from beneath a separated roof of a carriage upon which a ponderous mass of debris and partially ruined carriages were piled.” (Eastern Daily Press, 12 September 1874). 27 people were killed and many injured.
This incident, given its prominence, also provided an insight into the White-Freeman family relationships at this time. Anne Maria’s brother, Henry Freeman, who was a timber merchant in London (and whose business and health were failing) wrote to his sister-in-law Mary – the wife of his and Anne Maria’s elder brother, William P B Freeman, after reading of the accident in the newspaper: “…the Whites have cut me entirely since my calamities and therefore I do not write to them but I should be very glad if William would go up to their house tomorrow morning to enquire how Wenty is going on and send me a few lines by tomorrow night’s post reporting his injuries” (Quoted in P Scrivens: The Great Thorpe Railway Disaster).
On 26 September the Norwich Mercury published a letter from R Wentworth White thanking those who had rescued him “from the very jaws of death in the late fearful railway collision at Thorpe”.
Shortly after this, a legal case was dismissed in which Richard Wentworth White was one of several medical men against whom charges of cruelty to animals had been made as they had been involved in an incident when a Dr Eugene Magnan had injected alcohol and absinthe into dogs. Notably, several senior surgeons in the city spoke on behalf of the defendants.
The affluence of the family is shown in the 1870s and 1880s when Richard and Anne Maria advertised (Norwich Mercury/Chronicle) for a succession of domestic servants, such as “a good plain cook who understands her duties and can make good bread. A country person preferred. Age not less than 25” (1874); “a plain cook for a family” (1877); “a strong, active, general servant, where a cook, also a house and parlour-maid are kept” (1881); “a gardener, single-handed, who thoroughly understands flower and kitchen gardening” (1881); “a lad, under 18, to clean boots, knives, etc, and to assist the gardener” (1882); “a good, plain cook” (1884). Richard’s will, dated June 1884, left £20 to his “faithful servant John Chittim”. (From census records, this is probably John Chittem, a groom/coachman who lived in St Giles.)
In 1880, Anne Marie and Richard’s son, Edward Arthur White, then working in general practice in Malmesbury in Wiltshire, married Anne Maude Jennings on 21 October at Malmesbury Abbey. (He was the only one of Richard and Anne Maria’s children to marry in Anne Maria’s life time, though their daughter Annie Maria later married shortly before Richard’s death in 1892.)
In the 1880s Richard arranged for the erection of a marble memorial to his parents in Radwinter churchyard and in a letter to his son Henry asking him to donate to the restoration of the church porch, he wrote “your mother improves very nicely”.
Richard and his sons were also active in the Freemasons. He joined the Freemason’s Social Lodge in 1859 and the Lodge of Sincerity in 1863, and his sons Richard Wentworth White and Henry Freeman White both joined the Union Lodge in Norwich in the 1880s. Percy White was also active in freemasonry, and in 1892 was master of the Weyside Lodge.
Richard was a governor of the Dental Hospital of London at Leicester Square, and he also took an active part in the organisation of the Eastern Counties Dental Association. In 1882, at their first annual meeting, Richard White was the president and “delivered a very able address on the progress of dental science during the last fifty years, and on the prospects of the profession…the suppression of quackery, with the introduction of dental legislation, and the development of the British Dental Association”. The association adjourned for luncheon and partook of “the generous hospitality of the President, at Heathfield House” (Norfolk News 29 April 1882).
This Association became affiliated to the British Dental Association (BDA) as its Eastern Counties Branch.
In 1885, Richard was the fifth president of the BDA (when his son Richard Wentworth was president of the Eastern Counties branch) and addressed the BDA annual conference, held at Downing College Cambridge (BMJ). Richard’s “handsome presence in the chair, and his able address, will be remembered by many members of the Association”.
Sales of the photograph, taken by Henry Bland, were donated to the BDA Benevolent Fund.
Early in 1886 Richard was seized with an attack of paralysis. Forced to retire from his practice, he was also unable to attend the next BDA meeting and was succeeded as president by Sir Edwin Saunders (who was the first dentist to be knighted and dentist to Queen Victoria). His son, Henry Freeman White, gave up his dental practice in London to act as assistant with his brother in the running of the firm of “Richard White & Sons”.
In October 1886, their daughter advertised “wanted, for Kent, strong servant as housemaid to assist with invalid”. Later that month, there was a notice in the Norwich News, that “Richard White Esq (who has left Norwich), in consequence of the above house not being disposed of at the auction, to offer the same for sale by private contract”. The house remained unsold, and instead was leased, and later occupied by his son Henry Freeman White.
The family moved to Dover where they lived at 2 Camden Terrace.
Anne Maria died there on 21 October 1888 aged 69. She was buried in St James Cemetery.
In the 1891 census Richard was described as paralysed; Ellen, Ada and Gertrude were also living at 2 Camden Place, as were a parlour maid, a cook, and a male nurse attendant.
On 28 April 1892, Annie Maria married Benjamin Potter Nettleton, an autioneer and valuer (and JP) of Hanover Street, Batley, Yorkshire, on 28 April 1892 at Mirfield.
Richard died aged 73 at 2 Camden Crescent, Dover on 3 July 1892 and was buried at St James Cemetery.
In October 1892, the “whole of the costly furniture, grand pianoforte and harmonium, 30 valuable oil paintings, by the Old and Modern Masters, some of which are of the Norwich School…plated goods, linen, bath chair, invalid couch” of Camden Crescent was put up for auction on the instructions of his executors, with the house to be let.