To the
Dear Memory of
PHILIP LANCASHIRE BOOTH M.R.C.S.
of BROWHEAD, WALNEY ISLAND
WHO DIED MAY 2ND 1941
AGED 91 YEARS
ALSO ALICIA
BELOVED WIFE OF DR. P. L. BOOTH
WHO DIED FEB. 2ND 1914
PEACE PERFECT PEACE

On the right side it has:

SARAH BOOTH
WHO DIED FEB. 27 19xx
AGED 81 YEARS

DEATH OF DR. P. L. BOOTH

BARROW’S VETERAN PRACTITIONER

One of Barrow’s oldest inhabitants and a veteran of the medical profession has been removed by the death of Dr. Philip Lancashire Booth, of Empress-drive, Walney, who passed away yesterday afternoon. He had been in practice in Barrow for about 70 years, having reached the ripe age of 91. He was probably the oldest doctor in practice in England.

The late Dr. Booth came to Barrow in 1871 as House Surgeon at the North Lonsdale Hospital, then a very unpretentious and modest institution. He had an extensive practice, especially in his earlier days, when all the Stank mines were in operation. He had a surgery in Hartington-street for many years.

The late doctor was also at one time a prominent figure in Freemasonry, being a Past Master of the Hartington Lodge No. 1021, and attained high Provincial rank in several degrees.

He was also for a long time an official of Barrow Choral Society, which was under the conductorship of the late Dr. E. Brown. For many years the doctor was a member of St. George’s Church choir.

Dr. Booth lived a quiet life, devoting the whole of his time to his profession. He was highly respected by a large circle fo friends. He is survived by his widow.

The late Dr. Booth was born at Newton Heath, Manchester, and would have been 92 years of age next July. His connection with this district commenced at an early age, for he was educated at Pennington Vicarage by the Rev. Mortlock, then vicar, and who was formerly curate at Newton Heath. Later he went to a private school at Bucklow Hill, near Knutsford, Cheshire, and at the age of 12 played the voluntary at the Parish Church at Rhosthorne. (sic – Rostherne, Cheshire)

He continued his education at Owen’s College, Manchester, and then joined a medical school at Manchester, and took his M.R.C.S. degree in London in 1873.

In 1874 he was appointed house surgeon at the Barrow Hospital in Albert-street, then a wooden building, and later became senior house surgeon when the hospital was removed to School-street.

Afterwards he bought the practice of the late Dr. Greaves in Hartington-street, and lived in that street until he removed to Walney in 1902.

DR. P. L. BOOTH, BARROW

The Archdeacon of Furness, the Rev. G. S. Smith, M.A., spoke in tribute to the late Dr. Philip Lancashire Booth, of Empress-drive, Walney, at the funeral service at St. Mary’s Church, Walney, on Tuesday. The vicar, the Rev. C. Williams, M.A., conducted the service and Mr. W. Broome, F.R.C.O., at the organ, played “O Rest in the Lord” and the “Nunc Dimittis”, and accompanied the singing of the hymn “Abide with Me”.

Mrs. Booth was accompanied by Dr. G. Moore, and amongst the general mourners were noticed Mrs. Godfrey Smith, Dr. A. E. Thompson, Dr. L.A. Wilson, Mrs. Williams, Mr. and Mrs. W. Vale, Mr. and Miss Cooper, Mrs. Harland, and others.

Messrs. W. Ormandy and Sons, of Church-street, were the undertakers.

There were beautiful floral tributes from Mary; Miss Yates; Mrs. Brannigan; Mrs. Reed; Mrs. Coulton Hunter; The Rev. C. and Mrs. Williams; Mrs. and Miss Butler; Mr. and Mrs. J. Warwick; Major Oughterson; all at 15, Hartington-street; Mr. and Mrs. J.C. Talbot; Mr. and Miss Cooper; Mrs. Hayes, Harry and Dock; Doctors Coffee, Ronald and Moore; Chairman and committee, North Lonsdale Hospital; Furness Division B.M.A.

THE CASE OF ALICIA RACE

…. The case is told in a few words. A sergeant of marines, a Protestant – Lauman Race by name -is killed before Petropaulovski. A few days before his death he leaves the guardianship of his children to his wife, who was a Roman Catholic. The Romanist opinions of the wife must have been of an extremely moderate kind, since she consented to marry a Protestant without any ante-nuptial stipulations as to the form of religious belief in which the children were to be brought up. Sarjeant (sic) Race, however, being himself a Protestant and a religious man, as is proved by the letter which he wrote to his wife a day or two before he was killed in action, left her guardian of the two children. …

For eight months after the news of her husband’s death had been received in England his widow took the two children to a Protestant place of worship. …. Time, however, wore on, and as sorry oozed out Romanism crept in. The priests of her own faith got around her, and persuaded her that it was necessary for the salvation of her children and for her own that first the boy and then the girl should be removed from the schools to which they had been sent under the auspices of the Commissioners of the Patriotic Fund. She applied for the delivery of her son, a lad under twelve years of age, and her request was instantly complied with, as the boy himself made no opposition to the claim. The persons, however, who had interested themselves in her case informed the mother that she could do nothing for the boy unless the little girl too – the child of ten years of age – was also removed from the taint of Protestant instruction.

The article goes on further to become more anti-Catholic:

Had Sergeant Race left particular directions that his children should be brought up as Protestants, no doubt the guardian would have been bound to follow his injunctions. This however, the sergeant neglected to do, and consequently has left his unfortunate offspring exposed to the machinations of the Quirk, Gammon and Snap of Rome. ….

 

Quirk, Gammon and Snap appear in a popular legal comedy-drama of the time: “Ten Thousand a Year” Samuel Warren 1841.

THE CASE OF ALICIA RACE

VICE-CHANCELLOR’S COURTS, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 11.

(Before Vice-Chancellor Kindersley)

RACE V. RACE. – RE ALICIA RACE. – This case, which has been heard in his honour’s private room, has at length been brought to a conclusion. It is, of course, not possible to give any report of the facts or arguments upon which his honour’s decision has been arrived at, but the following minute of the order may be relied upon: - “An undertaking being given by the Rev. E. W. Bickersteth and four other parties, to clothe, maintain, and educate the infant, Alicia Race, in a manner suitable to her station, and to an amount not exceeding £25 a year, declare that the infant ought to be brought up in the Protestant faith, appoint Captain Conolly and J. E. Woodroffe, Esq., guardians, if they will undertake the office, of the said infant; if not, refer it to chambers to appoint a fit and proper guardian. Child to be delivered to the matron of the Sailors’ Orphan School, Hampstead.

ALICIA RACE

Poor little Alicia Race has become a distinguished character – she has been closeted tete a tete with the Vice-Chancellor of England, and – as a matter of course – she is to be reared a Protestant. There are some odd anomalies in the British constitution with all its vaunted perfections. Such a case, and so conducted in Rome or Naples, in Madrid or Vienna, would have aroused the virtuous or rather fanatic indignation of all the bigots in the empire, but in the metropolis of Britain, within gun shot of Three Estates of the realm, and with the fourth excluded, a case is decided than which there never was more clearly demanding the free exercise of conscience, and the presence and intervention of the natural and rightful guardian, whilst the party most deeply concerned is still a mere child, less than ten years old. So impenetrable a mystery hangs over this extraordinary case, and the proceedings have been conducted in so extraordinary a manner, that we presume no further light is to be thrown upon it, unless Parliament think it of sufficient importance to interfere, and remove the veil which has been so unaccountably thrown over it. One thing, however, is certain, that Catholics will henceforth learn to be more cautious how they contribute to charitable funds which Protestants are to administer. There is no knowing to what abuses this precedent may lead, but it is evident that the proselytising associations of the empire will leave nothing undone to effect their treacherous purposes.

ALICIA RACE

Poor Alicia Race may thank Providence that Mr. Wilberforce and a number of proselytizing “perverts” have attempted to take her from the Orphan Refuge at Hampstead, on the false pretence that they wanted to assert parental rights though we may be sure that if the parental rights were opposed to sacerdotal authority, these gentlemen would not contend for them very strenuously. The result, however, is, that the little orphan has been constituted a ward of Chancery, a sufficient provision having been guaranteed for her support and education till she comes of age. The case excited a great deal of interest, and the issue of the proceedings in the Court of Chancery has given general satisfaction. Among Protestant journals, the London Examiner alone has raised a dissenting voice, in an article which the Dublin Evening Post pronounces “the sole redeeming feature about the English press, in reference to this great constitutional case and its consequences.” The Examiner certainly writes very strongly upon the subject. The Lord Chief Justice had decided that the girl should be given to her mother; the Vice-Chancellor decided that she should be sent back to the Protestant school. There she now is, and there she will remain. This fact provokes the lively indignation of our Whig contemporary. He says: - “As this case of collision now stands, the Protestant clergy and the courts of equity triumph. The priests have been run down, - a disaster we could bear with equanimity, but, unhappily, the law has been smashed at the same time, and what is much the worst part of the catastrophe, the principle of parental authority, which was vitally involved in sustaining the decision of the law, has been overthrown and demolished along with it.” Now, we think it would not be a matter for lamentation if equity more frequently prevailed over law; for justice and legality do always go hand in hand – a fact which we shall find admirably illustrated in the case of Alicia Race. There seems something very alarming in the picture drawn by our contemporary: the judgement of the highest legal court in the realm “turned upside down by a Vice-Chancellor “sitting in his private room”; “a victory over nature, reason and law”; the claims of the mother “as strong as anything in physical or moral nature, deliberately set aside”; an infant torn from the arms of a parent not proved unworthy of her charge “on the score of one moral flaw in her reputation, upon which there was not the slightest stain”, - mother that enjoyed the entire confidence of her husband, who with his dying breath committed his children unreservedly to her “pious influences”. Yet this mother is set aside, and not even made one of the guardians. The decision of the Vice-Chancellor is therefore said to be “of the very worst example”. What aggravates the evil is that this alleged violation of the right of nature, the dictates of law, and the precepts of religion was perpetrated by the Vice-Chancellor, “sitting in his private chamber”. How like the Inquisition! How unworthy of a judge in this free Protestant country! Surely there will be an appeal to the Lord Chancellor or the House of Peers. Nothing of the kind. There is an end to the matter. The Jesuits and their Oxford disciples will let Alicia Race alone. They will not again drag the mother forward as the pious confessor of the principle of parental authority. What if it was they, and not the Protestant party, that requested the Vice-Chancellor to decide the matter in his private chamber? What if they shrank from appearing in open court? What if Mr. Wilberforce willingly delivered up the child? “Hereby hangs a tale” – a tale startling but true. It will deprive the Oxford perverts and their friends of a great grievance. The following simple narrative, on which our readers may place implicit reliance, will rub the gilding off the fine sentiments which our contemporaries have uttered on this subject. Sergeant Race did indeed repose unbounded confidence in his pretended wife, but never was confidence so misplace, as the following facts will testify. Mrs. Race (so called) is a native of Ulster; she was married in 1838, by the parish priest of Templeport, in the diocese of Kilmore, to a person named M’Manus, a sergeant in the 48th Regiment, by whom she had a son. The regiment being ordered abroad, she went with her husband to Gibraltar. It was next ordered to Jamaica, and, not being allowed to accompany it, Mrs. M’Manus got a passage home in her Majesty’s ship The Queen. Race was a marine on board that ship. To him she presented herself as the Widow O’Reilly; and they were married in the church at Chatham, in June 1844, her first husband still being alive. He subsequently returned, lived in Manchester as a pensioner, and did not die until 1856. Clearly then, “Mrs. Race”, alias M’Manus, was guilty of bigamy, and wickedly imposed on the brave Sergeant of Marines. She also imposed on the Commissioners of the Royal Patriotic Fund, by declaring that Race was the father of both the children, and that she had never been married to any other man. The boy was sent to a Marine School, and the girl to the Asylum at Hampstead. Then the Wilberforce party got round the mother, and persuaded her to withdraw them from the contamination of “heresy”. The boy chose to go with her, and was permitted; but the girl firmly refused. Hence the writ of habeas corpus, and “the great constitutional case”, about which the Roman Catholic journals have made so much noise. And here we may remark on a curious fact, that every one of the persons concerned in the case, with the exception of Sergeant Shee, counsel, attorney, clergy &c., were perverts from Protestantism, - all animated by proselytizing fanaticism. The history of Mrs. M’Manus was first communicated to the committee in an anonymous letter. Inquiry was then made into the facts. A certificate of the first marriage was obtained from the parish priest at Templeport; the register at Chatham was consulted, and a copy of the statement made to the Commissioners was obtained, with other documents, which proved beyond doubt that the woman was guilty of bigamy, and was an imposter. When Mr. Wilberforce and his party found that this damning evidence was in the hands of the committee, and would be produced in open court, they prudently slunk from the disclosure, and were glad to have the matter settled by the Vice-Chancellor in his private chamber. This is the secret of the whole matter. The girl is now safe in an excellent institution, which is patronized by some of the highest personages in the land, and also by his Royal Highness Prince Albert, who takes a lively interest in the orphans there sheltered, particularly the children of soldiers who have fallen in the service of their country, and not the least, we may be sure, in the intelligent little ward of Chancery, Alicia Race. – Daily Express

NB “Pervert” seems to be used in the context of “convert” to the Catholic faith. The Armagh Guardian seems to be a Protestant paper. Exactly the same report was printed in various other publications e.g. London Evening Standard 3 March 1857; Macclesfield Courier and Herald & March 1857, this time quoting the Dublin Warder.

BOOTH – On May 28, 1963, Rosa Mary Booth, of 63, Enys-road, Eastbourne, aged 85 years, widow of Dr Philip Lancashire Booth. Cremation at Eastbourne Crematorium on Friday May 31, at 3 p.m.

Mrs Rosa Mary Booth, of Enys-road, Eastbourne, who died in May, aged 85 years, widow of Dr. Philip Lancashire Booth, left £2198 0s 10d. gross (£2074 18s 8d net). Probate has been granted to Martins Bank Ltd., the sole executor.