Illustrated talk by Richard Holladay
Wednesday, 8 August 2018
Charles married Nina Allison in 1890 at age 27 and lived with
his new wife in a gracious house called Undercliffe which his father-in-law, owner of a successful brewing business, had built. Charles
graduated in 1889 as a doctor in Durham and then moved to Devon and was settled in Dawlish by 1892. in 1897 be took out a lease on a house called Knowle in Dawlish which he re-leased in 1903. It is
now the Dawlish Museum and it has kept the surgery as it was.
He took out another lease for his surgery and this house he called Undercliffe, perhaps in memory of his
first wife who had died in 1907, aged only 47, leaving him with three children. She is buried in Dawlish Cemetery. In 1911, Charles married Grace Fenner and they had two children, one of whom, Nancy
born in 1916, was Richard’s mother.
He showed his philanthropic side even then, being a member of the Council and elected Chairman twice. He
also worked at the Cottage Hospital and set up the Infirmary in the High Street which lasted until 1903. He moved to Exeter in 1920 having worked in Military Hospital No. 2 during the Great War and
bought Bouverie House in St Leonards. He practised from there for many years with two colleagues. He was also heavily involved with St John Ambulance and was a prison doctor at Devon County Prison.
He retired the age of 63 and moved to London but later returned to Devon to escape the blitz and died aged 84 in 1947.
A patient, one Mr Hammett, a dairy farmer, was persuaded by Lovely to sell his milk in bottles instead
of using the open-topped churns which one could see being flicked by the delivery horse’s tail. This was an important hygiene development. Hammetts Dairies Ltd was formed in 1925 and existed until
recently.