Transcript

Of

David Shier, M.D.  [Obituary]

Trans. Devon. Assoc. vol. XXXIV, (1902), p. 33.

by

J. Brooking-Rowe (Ed.)

Prepared by Michael Steer

The obituary was read at the Association’s July 1902 Bideford meeting. Dr Shier spent most of his professional life as a practitioner within the Colonial Service, followed by an extensive period of retirement at Exmouth. The index of 18th and 19th century residents of the colonies of Berbice, Demerara, and Essequebo (British Guiana), compiled and maintained by Tikwis Begbie, indicates that in August 1857, Dr Shier married Eleanor Lyons; andon his retirement in September 1873, married Elizabeth Maclagan of Poarely, Forthshire, Scotland. Dr Shier’s brief obituary, from a copy of a rare and much sought-after journal can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.

David Shier, M.D., was born in Aberdeen, July 29th, 1815. His parents removed to Banff while he was a child, and he was educated at the Banff Academy, and afterwards at the University of Aberdeen, where he took his degree of M.D. 1841. After practising for some years in Banff he went to British Guiana, where an elder brother was Agricultural Chemist to the Colony. He was appointed the first Inspector of Estates Hospitals in 1859, and retired in 1873, coming to reside in Exmouth in 1876, where he died, 16th June, 1901, and was buried at Littleham on the 20th June.