Thomas Hahnemann Hayle M.B. B.Sc. (4 March 1855 – 30 October 1908), son of homeopath Dr. Thomas Hayle, was a British homeopathic physician who practiced in Rochdale, Lancashire. He eventually took over his father’s practice at 154 Drake Street, Rochdale. He was an active member of the homeopathic medical community and was elected a member of the British Homoeopathic Society in 1886.
Thomas Hahnemann Hayle was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne in March, 1855, to homeopath, Dr. Thomas Hayle (1808 – 1886) and Sarah White Turner (1813 – 1898).
At the age of five, in 1862 Thomas Hahnemann Hayle’s family moved to Rochdale. Hayle studied at the new Rochdale Grammar School and at Owens College (established in 1851, and later renamed Victoria University of Manchester).
In 1879 Hayle was awarded his M.B. from London University and later a Bachelor Science from Victoria University.
In April 1885 Hayle married fellow Quaker, Sarah Elizabeth Clarke, (1861 – 1936) at Eccles Friend’s Meeting House. They had eight children: Dorothy Bowerbank Hayle (1886 – 1968), Margery Redwar Hayle (1889 – 1979), Thomas Bowerbank Hayle (1890 – ), Edgar Turner Hayle (1895 – 1917), Constance Mary Hayle (1897 – 1982), Elizabeth Sarah Hayle (1899 – 1956), Geoffrey Hahnemann Hayle (1901 – 1948), James Brian Richmond Hayle (1904 – 1975).
On his father’s retirement Thomas Hahnemann Hayle took over his practice in Rochdale where he built up a large and devoted clientele. One of Hayle’s patients was John Bright M.P. who Hayle attended to throughout his final illness and death.
Hayle was known as a meticulous and conscientious diagnostician with a preference for low dilutions, although he was not averse to using high potency remedies if the situation warranted.
Thomas Hahnemann Hayle was an active and well-regarded member of the homeopathic medical community. In September 1905 he was an attendee and participant in the British Homoeopathic Congress held in Hastings. He also attended the International Homeopathic Congress held in London at Aberdeen House, Argyll Street, Regent Street, on 11th-18th July 1881.
Hayle was actively involved in the local community, serving on the Rochdale Educational Committee and on the parish council. He was particularly invested in the battle against consumption and was a leading proponent of open-air treatment of the disease among the Rochdale Poor. To that end, Hayle was instrumental in the founding of Tan y Geulan, a homeopathic home for consumptive convalescents in Llanfairfechan, on the North Wales coast.
Thomas Hahnemann Hayle submitted cases and articles to various homeopathic publications, including The Method of Choosing drugs homeopathically and Thoughts on the Scientific Application of the Principles of Homeopathy in Practice
In addition to his medical work and involvement in the local community Thomas Hahnemann Hayle was also a keen cricketer, and amateur meteorologist, and Churchwarden. His strenuous life and little time for rest caught up with him and Hayle suffered from fraught nerves and insomnia. He committed suicide by ingesting prussic acid.
Hayle’s Obituary is in the Journal of the British Homeopathic Society. Hayle’s friend and patient, John Albert Bright M.P., son of John Bright, delivered an address the Sunday following his death in which he remembered Hayle.
Thomas Hahnemann Hayle left behind his widow, four sons, four daughters, all unmarried, and his practice partner, Dr. Robert Harris, son of London politician and homeopath, Dr. Henry Harris.
Of interest:
Thomas Hayle M.D. (1808 – 1886), father of Thomas Hahnemann Hayle, was a British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy to become Physician at the Durham Homeopathic Dispensary, the Northumberland and Newcastle Homeopathic Dispensary, the Sunderland Homeopathic Dispensary. Hayle was one of the founders of the Northern Homeopathic Medical Society, a member of the Hahnemann Medical Society, a medical governor for the London School of Homoeopathy, and a member of the Management Committee of the British Homeopathic Association.
Thomas Hahnemann Hayle‘s sister Sarah married homeopath Dr. William Adam Kennedy, son of Dr. John Ferguson Kennedy, who had taken over Thomas Hayle’s Newcastle practice. The marriage was not a success, however, and Sarah filed for divorce in 1899 on the grounds of adultery and abandonment. The divorce was granted in 1900.
Geoffrey Hahnemann Hayle M.B. Ch.B (8 December 1901 – 3 May 1948), son of Thomas Hahnemann Hayle:
was a medical graduate of Manchester. Before working as a GP in Chester, he had been a house officer at London Homeopathic Hospital. Like his father, he committed suicide in 1948.
Thomas Hahnemann Hayle Ph.D. M.B. B.S (6 August 1931 – ?), son of Geoffrey Hahnemann Hayle and Florence M. Taylor (1904 – 1999), grandson of Thomas Hahnemann Hayle, resided at The Cottage, Oaklands, Hooton, Cheshire. In 1958 he married Janet M. Gooch.
Another Thomas Hahnemann Hayle (c.1916) graduated from the University of Manchester in 1939.
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