William Chester Minor, also known as W. C. Minors (June 1834 – March
26, 1920) was an American army surgeon who, later, was one of the largest
contributors of quotations to the Oxford English Dictionary. He was held
in a lunatic asylum at the time.
Early life
Minor was born on the
island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the son of Congregationalist Church
missionaries from New England. He had numerous half-siblings, among them Thomas
T. Minor, mayor of Seattle, Washington in the late 1880s.
At 14 he was sent to the
United States, finishing his medical education in 1863 at Yale.
Military career
He was accepted by the
Union Army as a surgeon and served at the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864,
which was notable for the terrible casualties suffered. Minor was also given
the task of punishing a Northern soldier by branding him on the face with a D
for "deserter". This man was an Irish immigrant, and his nationality
later played a role in Minor's dementia delusions.
Move to England
In 1871 he went to the UK
settling in the slum of Lambeth, in London where once again he took up a
dissolute life. Haunted by his paranoia, he fatally shot a man named George
Merrett, who Minor believed had broken into his room, on February 17, 1872.
Merrett had been on his way to work to support his family of six children,
himself, and his pregnant wife, Eliza.
After a pre-trial
period spent in London's Horsemonger Lane Gaol, Minor was found not guilty by
reason of insanity and incarcerated in the asylum at Broadmoor in the village
of Crowthorne, Berkshire. As he had his army pension and was not judged
dangerous, he was given rather comfortable quarters and was able to buy and
read books.
Contributor to OED
It was probably through his
correspondence with the London booksellers that he heard of the call for
volunteers from what was to become the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
He devoted most of the remainder of his life to that work.
He became one of the most
effective volunteers, reading through his personal library and compiling
quotations that illustrated the way particular words were used. He was visited
quite often by the widow of the man he had killed, and she provided him with
further books. The compilers of the dictionary published lists of words for
which they wanted examples of usage. Chester provided these, with increasing
ease as his lists grew. It was many years before the OED's editor, Dr. James
Murray, learned Minor's background history, and visited him.
Minor's condition
deteriorated and in 1902 he cut off his own penis. His health failed and he was
permitted to return to the United States and St. Elizabeths Hospital; he was
subsequently diagnosed with schizophrenia. He died in 1920 in New Haven,
Connecticut
The book The Surgeon of
Crowthorne (published in America as The Professor and the Madman) by
Simon Winchester, was published in 1998 and chronicles both Minor's later life
and his contributions to the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Dr William Chester
Minor & The O.E.D.
William Chester Minor was
born in Ceylon, in June 1834 to New England Congregationalist missionaries.
Minor was a clever sensitive lad who painted, played the flute, and spoke
several languages but kept having "lascivious thoughts" about the
local girls so he was sent 'back' to America when he was 14 to live with an
Uncle. He went on to study medicine at Yale and became a surgeon in the Union
Army in 1863.
In May 1864 he was at the
Battle of the Wilderness (notable for the horrible casualties suffered) and it
is thought that the exposure to the full horrors of war including the burning
alive of hundreds of soldiers, horrific casualties and mutilations triggered
his mental illness. As part of his duties he was forced to brand the letter D
on the face of an Irish deserter, a member of the Fenian Brotherhood, and this
incident caused him a great deal of mental torment. It is thought to be the
basis of his paranoid delusions about the Irish that were a major feature of
his later madness.
At the end of the American
Civil War Minor saw duty in New York City but he was strongly drawn to the red
light area of the city and spent increasing amounts of time and money on
prostitutes. By 1867, his behavior had come bizarre and the Army transferred
him to a remote post. By 1868 Minor showed growing signs of mental instability,
and placed in St. Elizabeth's Hospital, the U.S. Government Hospital for the
Insane. After 18 months he was allowed to resign his commission on the grounds
of "incapacitated by causes arising in the line of duty" and started
to receive an Army pension.
He was discharged from the
hospital in 1871 and came to London as part of a vacation. Here he resumed
going with prostitutes and at the same time his paranoia returned with a
vengeance. He became obsessed with the idea that the Irish were going to punish
him for the branding he carried out during the war. He took to carrying a
loaded gun for his own protection.
Early on the 17th February
1872 after returning home late at night he woke up believing that someone was
trying to get into his room. He chased after the intruder and shot at a man in
the street. George Merritt, a 34 year old stoker at the Lion Brewery, was
working an early shift starting at 2am and was walking down Belvedere Road when
Minor fired four shots two of which entered his neck. Merritt was declared dead
on arrival at St Thomas' hospital.
On the afternoon of April
6, 1872 Dr. William Chester Minor was judged not guilty on grounds of insanity,
and was detained "until Her Majesty's Pleasure be known" as a
"certified criminal lunatic" at the Asylum for the Criminally Insane
in Broadmoor, Crowthorne, Berkshire. Minor was allocated two rooms in the
'swells block' at Broadmoor and was allowed books and painting materials.
Merritt's wife Eliza was
left with seven children ranging from 18 years to 12 months to bring up with
another on the way. Times were very hard for her and her children but wealthy
Minor helped out financially and Eliza even asked to visit Minor in Broadmoor.
This highly unusual request was granted and following an experimental visit she
started visiting him monthly and even undertook to collect books from various
London bookshops for him.
These visits did not last
very long as Eliza took to drink but seemed to have greatly helped Minor as it
gave him a new occupation. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) editor Dr James
Murray had an eight page flyer (a letter) inserted into several new books
appealing for new readers to find words and quotations for the dictionary. One
of these flyers found its way to Dr Minor in Broadmoor, perhaps in one of the
books that Eliza brought him. He began reading and collecting books and turned
one of his rooms into his library. This he put to good use, as he became a
principal contributor of sixteenth and seventeenth century quotations to the
first edition of the OED for over thirty years. Minor always signed his letters
in the same way: Dr W.C. Minor, Broadmoor, Crowthorne, Berkshire and initially
the OED editor, Dr James Murray, was unaware that Minor was insane but after
many years he started regular visits to Minor in Broadmoor.
By 1902 Minor's mental
health had deteriorated and he cut off his penis in an act of self-mutilation,
which he thought would stop his lascivious thoughts. In 1910 following strong
representations from Dr Murray, the US Consulate and others, the then Home
Secretary, Winston Churchill, signed the necessary papers to allow Minor to
return to the mental hospital in the USA.
He died of complications
arising from pneumonia on the 26th March 1920 in an old peoples home in New
Haven, Connecticut, having been discharged from hospital shortly and is buried
at Evergreen Cemetery New Haven. The last psychiatric diagnosis on Minor was
that he suffering from dementia praecox or schizophrenia.
Frightful Murder in
Lambeth
South London Chronicle
Saturday 24th February 1872
A dreadful tragedy was
enacted in Belvedere-road, near Hungerford-bridge on Saturday morning last,
whereby a respectable man was shot dead in mistake for another man.
The murderer is William
Chester Minor, aged 37, described as an American physician, residing at 41,
Tenison-street, York-road, Lambeth. He was charged at Southwark Police-court in
the afternoon, when the main evidence was given by Police-constable 236L, who
said, that a little after two o'clock on Saturday morning he was on duty in
Belvedere-road, when he heard a report of fire-arms. He proceeded in that
direction and saw the prisoner coming on the opposite side of the road. He went
over to him and asked him who it was that had fired. He said he had, and,
asking him who he fired at, he said, "A man. I should not be such a coward
as to shoot a woman." Witness seized him and took the revolver produced
from his right hand; it was quite warm. He then took him to the station-house,
and on the way met another constable, whom he directed to Tenison street, where
he found the deceased lying near the wall of the Lion Brewery Stores, bleeding
from wounds in the throat. Another constable came up, and they took the body to
St. Thomas's Hospital, when he was found to be dead.
The examination at the
police-court was continued on Monday when Mr. De Tracey Goued, of the American
Bar, and Mr. John Nunn, Vice-consul of the United States, were present; but
upon being asked, the prisoner said he had no wish for their services at
present. The landlady of the house in which he lodged was called, and spoke as
to his general conduct since he took the apartments on the Wednesday after
Christmas. She heard him come home about one o'clock on Saturday morning and go
to his room, and about a quarter to two heard him go out; she had not heard him
go out of a night before. His room was generally unlocked, except when he was
at home; never saw any weapon about the room. Ellen Henderson, living at 19,
Tenison-street, stated that about two o'clock on Saturday morning she heard
four shots fired in rapid succession; one, two-one, two. Saw a constable
running down the street, and directed him to the spot whence the sound of the
shots came. The most touching point was when Eliza Merritt, the wife of the
deceased man, was giving her evidence. On being sworn she said - I live at
No.24, Cornwall-cottages, Cornwall-road. My husband had worked for thr Lion
Brewery about eight years. He was 34 years of age. On Saturday morning a little
before two o'clock he was roused up as usual to go to his work, and he
immediately got up and dressed himself. He was in his usual health. He struck a
light when he went out and said "good bye," as usual. For the last
three weeks he had gone out at two in the morning. I heard nothing more of him
until half-past seven, when I was told he was shot. Between two and three in
the afternoon I went to see him at the hospital. I have seven children. The
eldest is 18 and the youngest 12 months old, and I expect to be confined with
another very shortly. My husband had 24s. a week. Our large family kept us very
poor so I am now in deep distress.
Sergeant Steggles,
Acting-Inspector at Tower-street Police-station, recalled, and said that after
his examination on Saturday he went to the prisoner's lodgings and found two
large portmanteaus. In them he found seven or eight American coins, five bank
notes of 20 livres each, a box containing bulleted cartridges (Ely's make), and
five others were handed to him by Mrs. Fisher, who took them from a coat pocket
in the room. He found a United States surgeon's diploma, appointing him
assistant-surgeon to the army, dated 1866, and a captain's commission, dated
1867. He also found a letter of introduction, signed by J.W. Johnson, addressed
to Professor Rood, Sheffield Scientific School, Yale College, Newhaven,
Connecticut. He found in the room several water-colours in various stages of
completion. After the prisoner was removed from the dock, Mr. Nunn, the
Vice-consul, returned into court, and said he had had some conversations with
the prisoner, who told him the gold watch and chain were heirlooms in his
family, and wished them to be given up to him. Mr Partridge desired the
inspector to deliver them up to Mr. Nunn.
The inquest on the body was
held on Tuesday, when, after hearing the evidence substantially the same as
that given before the police magistrate, with the addition of that by Mr.
Williams, one of the hospital house surgeons, who said that either of the two
wounds to the neck, produced by bullets, was sufficient to account for death,
the jury returned a verdict of Wilful Murder against the prisoner, and the
coroner made out his warrant accordingly.
Subscriptions have been set
on foot on behalf of the family of the murdered man, and while the Rev. H.W.
Bateman, vicar of St. John's, Waterloo-road, states that general subscriptions
will be received by him at 158, Stamford-street, or by the secretary to the
Lion Brewery Company, Belvedere-road. Mr. Nunn makes as appeal to Americans in
London on behalf of the family.
At the inquest the 24s.
allowed to the jury were at once handed over to the
family.
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