Sheldon Francis Dudley, 1884-1956

Abstract

Sheldon Francis Dudley, destined to become Medical Director-General of the Royal Navy in the second World War, was born under the care of his future Service in the Royal Naval Sick Quarters, Lisbon, on 16 August 1884. His father, John Dudley, was a medical officer in the Royal Navy who, when he retired in 1906, had reached the rank of Deputy Inspector-General (equivalent today to the rank of Surgeon Captain). The Dudleys were a Quaker family, whose forbears were alleged to have settled in Co. Tipperary, Ireland, at the time when the Pilgrim Fathers fared further west to America. Sheldon Dudley’s uncle was for many years Protestant Rector of Glenarm, Co. Antrim. His mother was Edith Bella, eldest daughter of Richard Whittington, Prebendary of St Paul’s and Rector of St Peter’s, Cornhill, who was said to be a direct descendant of Robert, a brother of the famous Dick Whittington. Prebendary Whittington was well-known in the City of London and was for a time Master of the Merchant Taylors Company and twice Chaplain to the Lord Mayor. Dudley had one brother, two years his junior, who was killed on the Somme in the 1914-18 war. In 1913 Dudley married Ethel Edith Wood ( née Franklyn), a widow with one son. There were no children of the marriage. Dudley died on 6 May 1956, and is survived by his widow.