Bertrand Dawson, 1st Viscount Dawson of Penn

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bertrand Edward Dawson, 1st Viscount Dawson of Penn GCVO KCB KCMG PC FRCP, (1864–7 March 1945) was a doctor to the British Royal Family.

Dawson joined St Paul's School in London in 1877 and University College, London in 1879. After graduation he worked as a physician for several years and married Minnie Yarrow (a daughter of the future Sir Alfred Yarrow, 1st Baronet) in 1900 and they had three children:

Hon. Sybil Frances Dawson (1904–1977), married the future David Eccles, 1st Viscount Eccles and had issue.
Hon. Ursula Margaret Dawson (1907–1999), married Ian Frank Bowater (a future Lord Mayor of London) and had issue.
Hon. Rosemary Monica Dawson (b. 1913), married Sir John Wrightson, 3rd Baronet.

Dawson then joined the Royal Household as a physician-extraordinary to King Edward VII and was promoted to a physician-in-ordinary under King George V in 1914. It was during this time he attended the king on the front in France during World War I, noticing the poor physical fitness of British troops and conducted research into trench fever. Dawson later published a report in 1920 whilst he was Chairman of the Consultive Council on Medical and Allied Services and the report later became a cornerstone of the future National Health Service when it was set up in 1948. That same year, he was elevated to the peerage as Baron Dawson of Penn and became an active member of the House of Lords.

On the night of the 20 January 1936, King George suffered a series of attacks of bronchitis and his end was allegedly hastened by Lord Dawson, who, it is rumoured, gave him a lethal injection of cocaine and morphine (this would have been high treason) (later that year, Dawson opposed a moved in the Lords to legalise euthanasia). Near the end of October that year he was promoted to Viscount Dawson of Penn and remained in the Medical Households of King Edward VIII and King George VI and treated numerous members of the Royal Family and foreign monarchs including Queen Maud of Norway and King Leopold III of Belgium. Lord Dawson later died in 1945 and without male heirs, his titles became extinct.