Gordon Morgan Holmes, 1876-1965

Abstract

Gordon Morgan Holmes was born in Dublin on 22 February 1876, the son of Gordon Holmes and his wife Kathleen Morgan). There were three brothers and a sister all of whom survive. The family is believed to have come to Ireland from Yorkshire and to have been settled in King’s County during the last of the Cromwellian plantations at the time of the Acts of Settlement in 1652. Holmes’s mother acquired by inheritance Dellin House and property at Castle Bellingham, Co. Louth, just south of the Ulster border, and this then became the family home and was farmed by his father. In complexion, physique and predominantly in temperament, Holmes was indubitably an Irishman, and during the centuries Irish blood must have mingled with the English strain. His mother died while he was a child and his formal education began late. He has said that he taught himself to read, but it is recalled that later in the village school his schoolmaster discerning unusual ability in the lad voluntarily gave him extra tuition. Thence he went as a boarder to the Dundalk Educational Institute where his schooling was completed. The school had a reputation for turning out good mathematicians, and when Holmes went up to Trinity College, Dublin, his choice wavered between reading mathematics or classics. But he was a determined walker, and had rapidly grown to love the Wicklow Hills, so easily within reach of Dublin, and to develop an interest in their flora. He thus decided to read natural science, was attracted by botany and biology, and so became a medical student. In 1897 he took his B.A., Senior Moderator in Natural Science, graduated in medicine in 1897 and proceeded M.D. in 1903. During his course he took a number of scholarships and a travelling prize. His hospitals were the Sir Patrick Dunn’s and—after graduation—the Richmond Hospital.