Annals of a Teesside practice, 1793-1969.

ON 3 JANUARY 1793, Watson Alcock successfully completed the examination for membership of the Company of Surgeons.1 Shortly afterwards he began his career as a surgeon in Stockton-on-Tees. It is not known if he entered an established practice but he was involved in the sale of a house with Dr. Thomas Kirton,2 who was a well-established surgeon and died soon after. Watson Alcock was born in 1770 at Coverham, in the North Riding, where his father was vicar. Unfortunately nothing is known of his childhood and medical training. Shortly before Alcock's arrival Stockton which for over 500 years has been of importance only as a market town was described 'as a port of no dispicable trade, that has started up almost within living memory'.4 There was no hospital in the area, but at a public meeting in Stockton on 16 March 1790, it was resolved to establish a Dispensary in the town. A room in the Almshouse, built in 1682, was set aside for this purpose and the Dispensary opened on 1 May.5 At the end of the eighteenth century, there were five surgeons and apothecaries as well as Alcock, working in the town,6 which had a population of 3,614.7 It was acknowledged as 'one of the handsomest towns in the North of England and a most agreeable and a happy place of residence.'8 By 1800 Alcock had established himself as an eminent member of the medical fraternity and was recognised as the principal surgeon in the town. In an address to the townsfolk he recommended inoculation with cow-pox and offered to inoculate the poor gratis.9 His work in public service increased and in 1807 he was elected Mayor for two years.10 During this period a young man was apprenticed to Alcock who was to make a discovery that would literally set the world alight. John Walker was the third son of John Walker a grocer, draper and spirit merchant, and he was born at Stockton on 29 May 1781. He was educated locally and after completing his apprenticeship with Alcock, he worked for a few years in London. On returning to Stockton he joined Alcock as an assistant surgeon. His family had hoped that he might become a surgeon, but he had a horror of surgical operations and decided to leave the medical profession. He worked with wholesale chemists in Durham and York before opening a druggist's store in Stockton in June 1819. The practice received drugs from him for many years. It was whilst he was apprenticed to Mr. Alcock that he first began to show his scientific inclinations.11 He became an expert botanist and mineralogist and was constantly performing chemical experiments. From these he made the discovery that led to the development of the friction match. The exact date of the discovery is not known but some time in 1826 is surmised, because the first recorded sale of 'Friction