ARTICLE
The position of Sir James Reid was unique in Queen Victoria's Medical Household. He was the first physician to remain constantly at the Queen's beck and call, and to travel with her wherever she went at home or abroad. For 20 years until her death he was a permanent member of the Household, starting his time as Resident Medical Attendant, and eventually becoming the Queen's senior Physician-in-Ordinary. Of all the Queen's apothecaries and medical attendants he was the only one to achieve the position of either Physician Extraordinary or Physician-in-Ordinary. His life with Queen Victoria is recorded minutely in his numerous diaries and scrapbooks which form a remarkable record. From them it is possible to tell exactly where Queen Victoria was and what she was doing between the years 1881 and her death in 1901. This account is based on the privately owned Reid papers.
James Reid was born on 3 October 1849 in the village of Ellon, Aberdeenshire, the elder son of the village doctor James Reid, MD. From the first he showed signs of precocity and an ambitious nature, combined with self-confidence and a sanguine temperament. His Scottishness never left him and to the end of his days he spoke with a distinct accent.
Reid distinguished himself at Aberdeen Grammar School and at the University as Gold Medalist. As a medical student he was the most distinguished scholar of his decade.
After university he practised medicine in London for a short time, but decided there was little future in that and went instead to Vienna to learn German and attend further medical courses at what was then the Mecca of medicine. After two years in Vienna he returned to Ellon where he joined his father's practice, and marked time for a further 3 years.
The great turning-point in Reid's life was in 1881. Queen Victoria required a resident medical attendant. It was essential that he should be a Scotsman, and preferably a native of her beloved Aberdeenshire. He should be highly qualified and conversant with German so as to be capable of communicating with the vast numbers of visiting relations who from time to time descended upon the Queen at Windsor, Balmoral and Osborne. Reid fulfilled all these requirements, but in addition he had other important qualities such as shrewdness, tact, honesty and a great sense of humour—the last a useful asset in the confined atmosphere of the Court Circle. On 8 June 1881 he had an interview with the Queen at Balmoral and on 11 June he went to London to see Sir William Jenner, the Queen's Physician-in-Ordinary, to whom for the next 10 years he was responsible and under whose aegis he worked. At the age of 31 this Scot of humble origin was catapulted into a position of the utmost importance.
At first his position was not one of great responsibility. The Queen's health was good and when in doubt he could always refer to Jenner. His social position, too, was not assured; but very soon, and on account of his personality, he was raised above the salt, and dined not only with the Household of which he became a member, but also with the Queen who needed him to enliven her dreary dinners.
When Sir William Jenner became ill and was forced to retire the Queen, instead of looking for a successor from among the eminent medical men of the day, chose her personal medical attendant to succeed Sir William as Senior Physician-in-Ordinary. In achieving this eminence, Reid sacrificed a great career in medicine. Science gave way to human relationships as the Queen called upon her doctor for advice and reassurance upon many matters entirely unrelated to medicine. As he was neither a member of the family nor in any way connected with politics, the Queen could talk to Reid as an outsider, knowing that he would be discreet. She would open her heart to him in conversations varying from whether dogs had souls and an after-life to her hatred of Gladstone, and her son Alfred's drunkenness. When she was approached with various queries her reply as often as not was `Ask Sir James'. She could always rely upon him to provide the right answer and smooth over any difficulties, especially after Sir Henry Ponsonby, her Private Secretary, died in 1895. For a long time his successor Sir Arthur Bigge, later Lord Stamfordham, could only approach the Queen through Sir James, as he had become by 1895. Even when he was on holiday the Queen wrote frequently to Reid giving a detailed account of her movements, bowels and otherwise. As she became older and acquired further ailments, so she depended on him more, and frequently he saw her as many as four times a day. He was not afraid to speak openly to her.
In the dispensation of medical honours and titles Reid's word was law. The Queen always consulted him before granting permission to her Prime Minister to deal out the honours, and it was Reid who proposed that Lister should become a peer, the first medical person to achieve this rank.
On 25 March 1883, 18 months after Reid had arrived at Court, John Brown awoke with erysipelas of the face and was `quite helpless all day'. Reid noted that by the evening of 26 March Brown was worse and suffered from delirium tremens. On 27 March Reid wrote to his mother `Brown is dead. The Queen is in a great way about it.' Reid signed the death certificate.
More than 20 years later Edward VII gave Reid the unenviable task of retrieving letters about John Brown for which the King was being blackmailed. In May 1905, after more than 6 months' negotiation, there is a triumphant entry in Reid's diary: `At 3pm George Profeit came and delivered over to me a tin box full of the Queen's letters to his father [Alexander Profeit, factor at Balmoral] about John Brown, for which he has blackmailed the King'. Reid handed them over to a grateful monarch. There were over three hundred of them, many, as he noted in his diary `most compromising'.
From 15 to 24 January 1901 Reid made copious notes of the Queen's last days and hours and also of the two days succeeding her death. This material represents the most detailed account of the Queen's last illness in existence. Curious anomalies occur in these notes. For instance, after 20 years of looking after the Queen, Reid had never seen her in bed until her last illness shortly before she died. The various draughts and potions that he had prepared for her, at all hours of the night, must have been administered to her by one of her maids or dressers. It is astounding too that only after the Queen's death did Reid observe that his patient had a ventral hernia and a prolapse of the uterus. Although he had been attending Queen Victoria for 20 years, obviously he had never examined her. Certainly, when he was away his locum was warned never to use a stethoscope as the Queen had a great aversion to it, but it is extraordinary that her own doctor had to treat her purely through verbal communication, especially as her natural inhibitions should have been broken down after so many childbirths.
The care of the Queen's person was Reid's responsibility until the final moment when the coffin was sealed. He adhered strictly to the burial instructions and took upon himself the task of carrying them out. To be placed in the coffin were rings, chains, bracelets, lockets, photographs, shawls, handkerchiefs, casts of hands—all souvenirs from her long life. Each member of her family was remembered, no friend or servant forgotten. Among the paraphernalia was:
`the plain gold wedding ring which had belonged to the mother of my dear valued servant and friend J. Brown which I have worn constantly since his death. A coloured profile Photograph in a leather case of my faithful friend J. Brown, his gift to me—with some of his hair laid with it and some of the Photographs which I have marked with an X and have often carried in a silk case in my pocket, to be put in my hand. All these objects, which have been so dear to me during my life time and have never left me—I should wish to be near my earthly remains.'
As an afterthought she wanted `The Pocket Handkerchief of my dearest husband, and a pocket Handkerchief of my faithful Brown, that friend who was more devoted to me than anyone, to be laid on me'. Reid had to wrap these things in tissue paper and cover them with Queen Alexandra's flowers so that they could not be seen by the family, when they came to pay their last respects. They would never have understood.
On 2 May 1910, Reid was the doctor summoned to attend what proved to be King Edward VII's last illness. As in the case of Queen Victoria he kept detailed notes from its onset until the King's death four days later.
Although he was a Physician-in-Ordinary to George V, apart from a few visits to Balmoral Reid's role as medical advisor to the Royal Family slowly diminished and he was seldom asked to attend professionally. He did, however, remain a friend of the family. Queen Mary relied upon him at Balmoral as a liaison between her and the highlanders, and there are accounts in the diaries of their carriage jaunts together visiting and taking tea with the tenants and cottagers. Sir Bertrand Dawson, a younger man, became the doctor whom the King consulted most.
James Reid died on 29 June 1923, five weeks after an acute attack of phlebitis, at the age of 73. He had always smoked a lot. Lord Stamfordham wrote in The Times: `Among the remarkable men of the later Victorian group, Sir James Reid stood somehow or other by himself. The niche which he created and filled remains in the truest sense inimitable'.