Wright, Dudley d’Auvergne (1867 – 1948)

Dudley d’Auvergne Wright Chevallier of the Legion of Honour F.R.C.S. L.R.C.P. (11 February 1867 – 22 January 1948) was an orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy to become a surgeon and an ENT Surgeon at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, Physician at the Leaf Homeopathic Cottage Hospital, Consulting Surgeon to the Leicester Homeopathic Hospital, the Manor House Hospital, and at the Phillips Memorial Homeopathic Hospital.

Wright was a Member of the British Homeopathic Society from 1889 and in 1900 was President of the Society. He was also actively involved from the outset in the British Homoeopathic Association, of which he was a member of the central executive committee and Secretary of the sub-committee of research. In 1915, Wright also served as President of the British Homeopathic Congress.

Dudley Wright was awarded the Chevallier of the Legion of Honour for his work at the Hôpital de L’Alliance in France in 1914.

Dudley Wright was also involved with the short-lived International Institute for Psychical Research, where he explored an interest in infra red photographs of the human body. He was also a keen dowser.

Dudley Wright was a contemporary of William Bayes, Charles Harrison Blackley, John Galley Blackley, David Dyce Brown, George Henry Burford, James Compton Burnett,  John Moorhead Byres Moir, John Henry Clarke, Henry Arthur Clifton Harris, Robert Thomas Cooper, Robert Montagu Le Hunt Cooper, Robert Ellis Dudgeon, John Epps, Washington Epps, Giles Forward Goldsbrough, Gilbert Hare, Clarence Granville Hey, Ethelbert Petrie Hoyle, Richard Hughes, Gottlieb Heinrich Georg Jahr, James Johnstone, Thomas Robinson Leadam, Octavia Margaret Sophia Lewin, Jesse Dickson Mabon, Edward M Madden, Henry R Madden, David MacNish, Edwin Awdas Neatby, Alfred Crosby Pope, Mathias Roth, Harold Wynne Thomas, Charles Thomas Knox Shaw, Charles Edwin Wheeler, Sir John Weir, David Wilson, James Craven Wood, Stephen Yeldham and many others.

Dudley Wright practiced at 55, Queen Anne Street, and at Bentinck Mansions, Bentinck Street, London.

Dudley d’Auvergne Wright was born in Colombo in Ceylon on 11 February 1867 to William Dumaresq Wright (c.1803 – 5 August 1886) and Amy Delatre Braybrooke (1833 – 1921), the youngest daughter of General Samuel Baybrooke. William Dumaresq Wright worked in the Ceylon Civil Service and at the time of his death from a carriage accident was Treasurer of Ceylon.

Dudley d’Auvergne Wright was educated at Haileybury College and at University College Hospital. Upon completing his studies in 1888, he was elected a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons. He immediately set out for advanced study in Ear, Nose and Throat at the University of Vienna.

It is unclear when he embraced homeopathy but upon his return to London, Wright:

took over Dr. Byres Moir’s Leinster Square house and practice when Moir moved to the West End; and he in turn passed the practice on to Dr. MacNish and moved to the West End as consultant in general surgery and diseases of the ear, throat and nose.

In 1889, Wright became a member of the British Homeopathic Society. The following year, 1890,

 

 

 

 

In 1890, he became Assistant Surgeon and ENT Surgeon at the London Homeopathic Hospital, and he established his consulting practice at Queen Anne Street and later at Bentinck Street. where he became widekly known for his method of injecting haemorrhoids, a method he introduced into the UK, publishing a brochure on this subject, The treatment of hæmorrhoids and rectal prolapse by means of interstitial injections in 1905 – a technique still used today (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sclerotherapy. See also J Pediatr Surg. 1998 Feb;33(2):255-8. Injection sclerotherapy in the treatment of rectal prolapse in infants and children. Chan WK, Kay SM, Laberge JM, Gallucci JG, Bensoussan AL, Yazbeck S. Source Department of Pediatric Surgery, The Montreal Children’s Hospital, McGill University, Quebec, Canada).

Promoted to Senior Surgeon at the London Homeopathic Hospital, and also as Consulting Surgeon at the Leicester Homeopathic Hospital, and at the Leaf Homeopathic Cottage Hospital in Eastbourne, and at the Phillips Memorial Homeopathic Hospital,

TWELFTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN HOMOEOPATHIC, OPHTHALMOLOGICAL, OTOLOGICAL AND LARYNGOLOGICAL SOCIETY, HELD IN ATLANTIC CITY, N. J., JUNE 19TH AND 20TH, 1899. Soon after assuming office the corresponding members selected at the last meeting, Charles Thomas Knox Shaw and Dudley d’Auvergne Wright of London, England, and Daniel Parenteau of Paris, France, were each notified of  their election. Daniel Parenteau did not reply to his letter of notification or to one sent by the President later.

Dudley Wright replied:

55, Queen Anne Street, Cavendish Square, W., May 17, 1899.
To Dr. Herbert D. Schenck :

My Dear Doctor: I should have acknowledged before this your kind note of February i8th last, acquainting me that the Ophthalmological, Otological, and Laryngological Society of America had done  me the great honor of electing me a corresponding member, only I have been waiting until I had written a paper which might be presented to the congress.

Having now accomplished this, I am sending it to you under separate cover, and would beg you to be so good as to convey to the society my sincere thanks for the honor which has been thus conferred upon me.

It is much to my regret that I am unable to join you all in your meeting, and to have the pleasure of becoming personally acquainted with yourself and your colleagues, but it unfortunately happens that our British Homeopathic Congress falls in the same week as your own, and as I am one of those who has promised to speak on one of the papers, I must be present at the meeting.

With my kind regards and sincere good wishes, believe me yours
very truly, Dudley Wright.

In September 1914, at a meeting at the Theosophical Society, Dudley Wright listened to Hector Hugh Munro ‘Saki’ describe the horrors of the French battlefields. The next morning, Dudley Wright reported to the War Office and the British Red cross and took a surgical Unit to the French Front. On 15.9.1914, Dudley Wright was in France.

Lady Fisher Smith, Lady Perks ( the wife of Robert William Perks) and Mrs Sidney H Holman had a week to collect money and surgical equipment, stored at his rooms in Bentinck Street, and accompanied by his nurse receptionist Barbara McGlashan and an American friend Madame Bartlett, he arrived at Victoria Station at 7am on 15.9.1914. Mrs Sidney H Holman, her daughter Joyce and her future husband Hastings Bertrand Lees Smith were there to wish them luck. Consuelo Duchess of Marlborough threw a bag of gold coins at Dudley Wright as his train departed.

By October 1914, a fully equipped 65 bed hospital was opened in Dieppe. Shortly thereafter, several of Dudley Wright’s colleagues from the London Homeopathic Hospital joined him, including Andrew Tocher Cunningham, Gilbert Hare, and Octavia Margaret Sophia Lewin.

The French and American Red Cross came to Dudley Wright’s assistance, and the Jesuit College at Yvetot was renamed the Hopital de L’Alliance, and by the end of 1914, this hospital numbered 200 beds, and over 400 operations were carried out. Dudley Wright was awarded the Chevallier of the Legion of Honour for his work at the Hopital de L’Alliance in France in 1914.

The Hopital de L’Alliance was eventually taken over by the French, so means were put in place to relocate the hospital and its expertise back to London. The Manor House Hospital at Hampstead Heath was born. By 24.7.1917, the War Office had established a hospital to treat disabled soldiers and sailors returning from WW1 under the British Red Cross and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and by 29.9.1917, the Manor House Hospital was opened.

Dudley Wright was assisted in his work at the Manor House Hospital by John Moorhead Byres Moir, and he finally left the Manor House Hospital in 1919, and worked in private practice with Andrew Tocher Cunningham, continuing his practice in London until 1920, when ill health forced him to retire. He ceased all work and took up farming in Devonshire, and he also grew flowers for the Paris market at his villa retreat in the Riviera.

In September 1919, Dudley D’Auvergne Wright was President of the British Homoeopathic Congress, held at Connaught Rooms, Great Queen Street, London. Also on the committee were Vice-Presidents Harold Wynne Thomas and Percy Roberts Wilde, Honorary Secretary and Treasurer George Burford, and Honorary Local Secretary, Josiah Cecil Powell.

In 1930, his health restored, Dudley Wright resumed his surgical practice in Bournemouth and in London. When WWII broke out, he went to Canada, and after a year, he headed towards South Africa, though his ship was sunk enroute by the germans, and Dudley Wright and his wife spent over an hour in the water in their life jackets before being rescued by another German vessel, they became POWs in Germany, Dudley interned in Hanover, and his wife interned near the Swiss border.

After a year, they were allowed to live on parole in Berlin, and interrogated by the Berlin Police. Amazingly, they were freed and allowed to travel on to Cape Town. Dudley Wright believed this was due to the fact that the Hopital de L’Alliance had treated German wounded, and also provided them with a piano!

Finally arriving in Cape Town, Dudley Wright began his surgical practice, but in 1946, he was back in Britian, to settle in Bembridge, Isle of Wight, where he wrote Foods for good health and healing.

Dudley Wright died at Bembridge on the Isle of Wight in 1948. His Obituary was in the British Homoeopathic Journal. Dudley Wright married Ethel Midi Anne Morse, who also died at Bembridge on 12th January 1961.

Dudley Wright was a member of the Entomological Society, Röntgen Society, and the Anthropological Institute,

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Select Publications:

Foods for good health and healing (19)

The treatment of hæmorrhoids and rectal prolapse by means of interstitial injections (19)

Druidism: the ancient faith of Britain (19)

The Epworth Phenomena (full copy) (19)

The Book of Vampires (19)

The Eleusian Mysteries (full copy) (19)

Robert Burns and His Masonic Circle (19)

A Manual of Buddhism (19)

 

and he contributed articles and cases to various homeopathic publications.

NB: There are an astonishingly large number of books written by ‘Dudley Wright’ on Google Books, but I cannot determine if these are by Dudley d’Auvergne Wright. They cover a whole spectrum of Freemasonry, religion and psychic phenomenon.