Milne-Redhead, Dr Humphrey

The collection consists of an incomplete set of accounts of Dr Milne-Redhead’s single-handed practice at Mainsriddle, by Dumfries. The two earlier books are informal records of income and expenditure with simple lists of incoming and outgoing payments (including household, family and private expenses) plus year-end analyses. These possibly represent a larger series of rough account books, from which the numbered series of ‘Cash books’ were prepared, which seems likely given that there is an overlap between GP/55/2 and GP/55/3, which both cover the year 1963. The numbered series of ‘Cash Books’ (beginning at no. 6) have Income and Expenditure laid out on facing pages and figures entered in orderly columns under different headings such as ‘Patients’ fees’ ‘Drugs, etc’.

1945-1972

5 volumes

These volumes were given to the library at Wellcome Collection in March 2002 by Dr Milne-Redhead’s daughter, Mrs Lesley Tregaskes.

Dr Milne-Redhead entered medical education after a period in banking and working at rubber-planting in Malaya. After graduating from Edinburgh in 1937 he held various house appointments and then saw war service in the North of England. An account of his work with ambulance trains during the Second World War has been placed in the Imperial War Museum. When the war was over he returned to Scotland and entered general practice at Mainsriddle in 1947, where he served the scattered community for 27 years. He had a keen interest in local wildlife, contributed to the Botanical Society’s botanical map of the British Isles, and was a member of the Wildlife Trust of Scotland.