Dr Doig and the fund which vanished for 57 years

​There was a brief agenda, the main item on which was to consider the scheme devised by the director of education, Mr Ranald Macdonald, for the administration of a Fund which bore the name of Dr Robert Stevenson Doig, formerly Medical Officer of Health for Lewis, from 1931 until the time of his death in 1965.

A public subscription in honour of Dr Doig’s extraordinary contribution to the health and welfare of the island had raised money to establish a Memorial Fund. The Committee’s advice from Mr Macdonald was to use it in order to establish an annual award which would support a gifted pupil leaving the Nicolson Institute to study medicine.

The Dr Doig Memorial Fund Committee solemnly resolved to support this worthy objective by approving the terms of a Memorial Award. The capital was to be invested by Ross and Cromarty County Council. The interest obtained therefrom would be used to fund the annual award. At that time, Lewis still fell within Dingwall’s jurisdiction with the County Council responsible for education.

The annual award was to be made “to the most able and promising pupil of the Nicolson Institute who has gained admission to a Scottish university … The recipient of the award should be encouraged to devote the sum received towards the purchase of textbooks, instruments, apparatus or equipment associated with the course of study prescribed for a student seeking qualification as a doctor”.

Fatefully, the Committee also agreed that “the administration of the award shall be vested in the Chairman of the Education Committee for the County of Ross and Cromarty and in the Director of Education of Ross and Cromarty, and in their successors in office”.

In a final flourish, the minute of the valedictory meeting concluded: “It was then decided by the members that as the Committee had now completed its remit, it should be disbanded”.

So far, so straightforward. If the Fund had been managed properly thereafter, the capital would have remained intact and also accruing over the past 57 years through investment while grants would have been paid annually out of the interest – and might by now be worth several thousand pounds a year for the benefit of a student for whom that money could make a significant difference.

In reality, none of that happened. Subsequent to the final meeting, Donald Kennedy, the District Officer for Lewis, wrote to Dr Doig’s widow, by then resident in East Kilbride. “It will no doubt be of interest to you to know what actually happened to the money collected as a Memorial to your late husband”.

Mr Kennedy continued: “You will probably appreciate that in a matter like this it takes considerable time to finalise everything and I have decided to enclose herewith a copy of our last minute which explains the position to you and from which you can note that the matter has now been handed over to the Ross and Cromarty County Council to administer”.

And that was the last that was heard of it – until now, 57 years later, which is a “considerable time” by any standard. Even at this distance, the way in which Ross and Cromarty County Council failed to implement the decisions of the Committee appears inexplicable. As a result of that failure, no Robert S. Doig Memorial Award has ever been made and no identifiable Fund has ever existed.

Its name has only now been resurrected as a result of work done by an official of Highland Council, Derek Martin, who was apparently given the task of “tidying up” something called the Ross and Cromarty Educational Trust. It emerged from his researches that, at some point subsequent to 1967, the Robert S. Doig money was subsumed into its coffers, though there is no paperwork to accompany this bare fact.

Recently however, Mr Martin did contact an official at Comhairle nan Eilean Siar who, in turn, put him in touch with Dr Doig’s grandson, Robert, who was able to provide one of the missing links which at least confirmed how the Fund came into existence – i.e. the correspondence sent by Donald Kennedy in 1967 to Dr Doig’s widow.

“I am often ridiculed by my family for keeping ancient family paperwork, but sometimes it pays off”, said Robert. “There was no other identifiable paperwork”. Now, armed with the minute of the final committee meeting and the covering letter to Robert’s grandmother, Mr Martin should be in a position to put a report before Highland Council’s education committee about what to do next.

Once again, that might not be as straightforward as it sounds. Critically, the question arises of what the value of the Fund would be today if the instructions of the Committee had been carried out over the past 57 years. The key to that lies in knowing how much was raised by the public subscription to create the Fund as the basis of subsequent investment.

Robert Doig was told that there is mention of the figure £8000 but it is not clear if that refers to the original capital or a combination of capital and interest at some point in time. That is critical to knowing what the Fund’s value would be today – and also what it could have been paying out to deserving students for more than half a century.

Given the esteem in which Dr Doig was held throughout the island, it seems likely that the public subscription in his memory would have been substantial. Whatever sum was raised at that time should, even on simple interest principles, have increased in value by around 20-fold. But how much was it?

Highland Council don’t know and I haven’t been able to find another source with either knowledge from the time or archival records, but researches will continue!

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“THE SLAYER”

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In 1965, at the age of 70, Dr Doig obtained a Doctorate in Medicine from Glasgow University. It was also the year he died. The subject of his Doctoral thesis was “One Hundred Years of Tuberculosis in Lewis”. In its introduction he wrote: “After 35 years in Lewis, I know the Lews and its people very well. I find the island a very pleasant place to live in and the people I esteem worthy of my admiration.

“The manner in which they met and endured the terrible onslaught of tuberculosis aroused my sympathy. To help them in their tragically heartrending circumstances became my chief objective. Now that the battle has been won, I feel the history of the disease in the island ought to be recorded, hence this Thesis”.

There is no room here for more than a fraction of the story that followed; of how Dr Doig identified the black house as “the most important factor in furthering the rapid spread of the disease”; of how he overcame the suspicions of many who lived in fear of TB; of how he toured every school on the island, vaccinating and educating; of how he introduced the BCG vaccine before it was official policy; of how eventually the battle was won.

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It is certainly history worth revisiting and maybe the time for that to happen in far greater detail will be next year when – Highland Council willing – the Robert S. Doig Memorial Prize will finally be awarded to a pupil of the Nicolson Institute.

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HIS DEATH

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Enough to say that the gratitude of the Lewis people was immense and the outpourings of sadness and sympathy which followed Dr Doig’s death were proportionate. The circumstances were extraordinary. On July 25th 1965, he went to Buckingham Palace to receive his MBE from the Queen. In the taxi back to his son’s home, he suffered a heart attack from which he died the next morning.

The following week, the Gazette published an image of the family group outside Buckingham Palace. The caption read: “Dr Doig’s tragic death so soon after receiving the honour makes this picture almost unbearably poignant but we feel our readers would like to remember him in this moment when his life’s achievement had received public recognition”.

The Gazette’s tribute reflected the scale of that achievement: “It is difficult to think of a more dedicated life than Dr Doig’s. After a period of private practice in the Glasgow area, Dr Doig came to Lewis in 1931, in charge of Public Health, when tuberculosis was still a dreaded scourge in the island. He threw himself with all the energy of his lively temperament into the task of eradicating the disease.

“No obstacle, whether from the fatalistic apathy of the sick, the dilatoriness of committees or department conservatism was to prevent him from carrying out measures that seemed to him a necessity. Success eventually crowned his efforts and T.B. was practically eliminated. No doubt a great deal of the success was due to devoted hospital and medical care but what played an even larger part was Dr Doig’s policy of early diagnosis and preventive vaccination.

“Dr Doig was a pioneer in BCG vaccination before it became official government policy and it was Dr Doig’s great personal achievement that, by his terrier-like persistence, and his warm personal approach to the public he was able to win that public’s co-operation and support that was so necessary for success.

“As the years went by, while a less dedicated man might have prepared for retirement, he sought for fresh opportunities to safeguard the health of the younger generation and regarded the day of his retiral as a day to be postponed as long as possible, as long as he was physically able to carry out his duties. So in his later years, despite failing health, he was to find one crusade after another in which he never spared himself”.

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THE COMMITTEE

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In June the following year, a Gazette headline stated: “Memorial Fund for Dr Doig Started”. A committee had been formed for this purpose at a meeting which was attended by the leading public figures of Lewis, including Provost Urquhart who was to become its chairwoman.

The Gazette reported: ‘Several ideas were put forward, including a garden which could provide fruit and vegetables to the hospital, a mother and child welfare clinic in Stornoway, a new wing to be built on to the Lewis Hospital, a plaque with an effigy of Dr Doig to be put in the Lewis Hospital, or even a yearly medical bursary to be held at one of the Universities.”

Note the word “even” which suggests that this was at the upper limits of expectations.

The report continued: “It was decided, however, that no final decision could be taken on this matter until the committee knew how much money they had to spend”. Whatever answer to that question the public subscription had provided then disappeared in Dingwall, without subsequent trace – and certainly no Dr Robert S. Doig Memorial Award.