Sincere will be the regret at the announcement of the death of the subject of this sketch. As I have known him since he arrived in the colony with his father (who was also John Chapman Davie), and his three brothers, William, Horace and Alexander, in 1862, it may not be inappropriate that I, one of his oldest friends, should tell what I know of him. Dr. Davie was born in Wells, Somersetshire, on the 22nd March, 1845, and was therefore sixty-six years of age. He, with his brother Horace (residing in Somenos), were educated at Silcoats College, England, and studied for the profession which afterwards made him known from north to south of the Pacific Coast, at the University of San Francisco. He also studied under a clever English physician, Dr. Lane, and under Dr. Toland, both eminent men who founded colleges in California.
After Dr. Davie had finished his medical course in California he came to Victoria and entered into practice with his father.
When I was about fifteen years old I was troubled a deal with my throat and was under his father’s treatment. I was obliged to give up singing in consequence, being a choir boy in Christ Church. In my frequent visits to the doctor’s surgery I became acquainted with Dr. Davie, Jr., who undertook the treatment of my throat until I was able to resume my choir duties. Both Dr. Davie and his brother Alexander were members of the choir at this time, and regular in attendance at service and choir practice. I can see with my mind’s eye at a choir practice both brothers. Mr. Cridge, the rector, always conducted these practices, and he asked each brother in turn to sing his individual part over in the anthem, as they were to take solos, he (Mr. Cridge) beating time as they sang. I might say that we had some fine singers in the choir in those days, and more anthems were sung than even now. His brother Horace and I were school-fellows at the Church Collegiate School, which was situated on Church Hill, just about where Mr. Keith Wilson’s residence now stands. It was built as a Congregational Church, and was destroyed by fire about 1870.
At the time I first became acquainted with Dr. Davie his father’s office was situated where Challoner & Mitchell’s store now stands, and was a very unpretentious affair—as most business places were in Victoria at that time—a wooden one-story frame cottage of three rooms. The doctor’s first office was on the corner of Government and Bastion, where Richardson’s cigar store stands. At the former office my friend studied and worked with his father until the latter’s death, when the son continued the practice in his own behalf.
From Mr. Alexander Wilson, who was a director of the Royal Hospital at the time, I am told a deal about Dr. Davie’s early medical career. He says the young doctor was ambitious to become medical officer to the Royal Hospital, then situated on the rock at the top of Pandora Street, and asked Mr. Wilson to try and get the position for him, even without salary, and Mr. Wilson, having great faith in the young man, promised to do his best, and at a meeting of the board, consisting of Alexander McLean, J. D. Robinson, Henry Short and Alexander Wilson, Dr. Davie was duly elected, and at a salary of £100 per annum, and held the position for over twenty years. He entered on his duties with great zeal, his first surgical case being that of an Indian girl who was accidentally shot on Salt Spring Island. The poor girl’s arm was badly shattered, and she was brought down from the island in a canoe. It was a bad case, but the doctor pulled her through and, saving her arm, sent her home again as good as ever.
Dr. Davie was fond of music, and in early days was proficient on the flute, contributing to the programme of many a concert for charity in those days when amateurs did so much to entertain the public.
That the subject of this sketch was a clever man goes without saying. Many there are, and have been, who have been snatched from grim death by this skilful surgeon. By some he was thought to be bearish and unsympathetic, but they who thought so did not know him as I did, or they would not have thought so. Where there was real suffering and danger there could not have been a more gentle, kinder-hearted or careful man. Because he did not always respond to a friend’s salutation in passing it was taken as bearishness or indifference. It was really pre-occupation. He was thinking out a difficult case for the next morning at the hospital. As he once said to a lady friend, "They little know the hours I pass walking up and down at night thinking out a case I have to operate on—how I shall do it to make it a success." I went into his office one day and found him with a surgical instrument on his knee which he seemed very intent on, and I asked him what it was for. He hesitated for a moment, then said, "You would not understand." But still he explained it all to me. It was for an operation in the morning on the stomach of a patient at one of the hospitals, and I have no doubt it was successful. About seven years ago he attended me for typhoid fever, and even then he had his bad spells of sickness, but still he came regularly, and on reaching the top of the stairs to my room he would hold on till his coughing fit was over. "Well, old man, how are you to-day?" After I had taken a turn for the better and was very susceptible to the smell of good things cooking downstairs, I asked him when I should be allowed to have something solid, and added, "Oh, I am so tired of milk and egg-nog; when may I have a bit of chicken or mutton?"
"Well, how many days is it since your temperature was normal? Well, in so many days you may have jelly and junket."
"Is that all?" I replied, disappointed.