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Had we lived in Alcester between the 1780s and 1821, the first
person we would probably have pointed out to visiting friends would have been Mr.Joseph
Brandish. He was a man of many parts and came from a family known as apothecaries and
doctorsin the town since about 1685. According to the Royal Colleg of :urgeons’
records he became a member of the Corporation of Surgeons (forerunner of the College) in
1786. Some of the time he could not have spent in Alcester because he was appointed a
surgeon to King George IV but when he was here he was famous over a wide area as an expert
on scrofula. Mary Hemming, writing to her brother in 1791 says “Alcester is full of
‘evil people’; Mr.Brandish has many patients who come for a cure”. The
‘evil people’ were those with scrofula the ‘King’s evil’, so
called because it had been believed that the touch of the monarch could cure the disease.
It was not only medicine: Joseph played a very full part in town life.
Mary Hemming also tells us in a letter of 1803 that when war was redeclared against the
French 100 volunteers came for- ward in Alcester, with Mr.Brandish as their captain. In
1791 the manor court, recently re-established, recorded Joseph Brandish as
‘mayor’, a somewhat up-market term for bailiff. The worthy doctor also served as
highway surveyor and a charity trustee as well as being the founder and first Master of
the Alcester Apollo Lodge Freemasons. Joseph’s interest in antiquities is recorded in
a book of 1814 , when he sent two Roman urns from Blacklands for inspection by the Society
of Antiquaries and was interviewed by by the book’s author.
It was Joseph Brandish who erected the plaque in the parish church to his father, Samuel,
and mother, Ann. Samuel had spent 50 years as apothecary in the town when he died in 1795,
so at Joseph’s death father and son had monopolised the town’s medical provision
for nigh on 100 years.
1. Birmingham Reference Library, 388630
2. ‘Beauties of England and Wales’,
Britton.
© Alcester & District Local History Society 1985