Updated (partial) on January 1, 2013
Notable Doctors From the First 100 Years
A Biography of
Philip Bernard Chenery Ayres
The last Colonial Surgeon (1873-1897)
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Philip Ayres |
b.July 13, 1840 Oxfordshire – d. October 12, 1899 Kent; son of Philip Burnard Ayres (M.D., London; Chief Medical Officer of the Civil Hospital, Mauritius; lecturer in chemistry at Charing Cross Hospital); M.R.C.S.Eng; M.L.R.C.P.Edin; government medical officer posted in Mauritius and India; arrived in Hong Kong (November 1873) to take up the position of Colonial Surgeon and Inspector of Hospitals (and would become the longest serving Colonial Surgeon – twenty four years); the following establishment were under the purview of the Colonial Surgeon: Police, Troops, Government Civil Hospital, Tung Wah Hospital, Victoria Gaol, Lock Hospital, Health of the Colony, and Sanitation, the Lunatic Asylum was added in 1884 when it as established; annual salary GBP600, allowed to carry on private practice whilst holding the public office aiming to make up the difference of GBP200 ( Ayres had asked for GBP800 per year); oversight the opening of the Government Civil Hospital; instituted the nursing staff of trained nurses from the London Hospital (1889); played a pivotal role in fostering a higher standard in sanitation including institutionalized the Sanitary Board (1883); handled the epidemic of Plague (1894); Worshipful Master of the Hong Kong Masonic Order, Officer of the District Grand Lodge of China; health began to fail in 1895; home leave (1896, this is the first and only home leave Ayres had ever took since arriving in 1873); retired (1897); died two years later at the age of 59; wrote in his last report before retiring, "What all my reports could not do the epidemic has done.", referring to the drastic improvement in sanitation standard following the epidemic; after his retirement, the position of Colonial Surgeon was changed to Principal Civil Medical Officer.
Annual Salary of some government officials in 1875 (in GBP)
Chief Judge |
2,500
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Puisne Judge |
1,700
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Attorney General |
1,000
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Postmaster General |
900
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Registrar General |
800
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Captain Superintendent of Police |
800
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Superintendent of the Gaol |
700
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Colonial Surgeon |
600
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(It will be interesting to find out why the Postmaster General was so generously paid...)
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