A doctor who served in a fever hospital in South East Cornwall during the First World War could be remembered on a Cornish war memorial 98 years after he died, writes Richard Whitehouse, local democracy reporter.
An application for listed building consent has been sent to Cornwall Council to add Surgeon Lieutenant Charles Henry Fairbank Atkinson to the memorial in the village of St Tudy.
A biography included with the application states that Dr Atkinson became the doctor for St Tudy in 1911/12, having been born in 1884 in London and completing his medical training in the capital.
He died in St Tudy in January 1920 and is buried in the village cemetery.
The biography states that he volunteered for the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in 1912 and was appointed as Surgeon Lieutenant in HMS Canopus which was involved in the Battle of the Falkland Islands, a British victory over the Imperial German Navy in 1914.
After the battle, Dr Atkinson was appointed to the hospital in Port Stanley and mentioned in dispatches for the manner in which he conducted the hospital.
He returned to the UK in 1915 and was appointed to Trevol Fever Hospital in Torpoint before joining the Destroyer HMS Tipperary in 1916.
Dr Atkinson was awarded the OBE in 1919 for his war service as a doctor. Another biography states that he married Maude Tregaskis from Bude in 1914, shortly before war broke out, and that they had a daughter.
The biography submission states: ‘Atkinson’s name does not appear on the St Tudy War Memorial – possibly because he died shortly before the memorial was erected. However, the Commonwealth War Graves Committee recognises that, as a serving member of the Commonwealth Military Force who died between 4th August 1914 and 31st August 1921, he was a casualty of war – no matter how or where he died.’
The application has come from a local history group.