Hector Gavin


Dr Hector Gavin MD was a Scottish physician and sanitarian.

Life

He was born in August 1815 the eldest son of Marion Walker and Hector Gavin, an engraver at 150 High Street on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh's Old Town. The family home was destroyed in the Great Fire of Edinburgh in 1824 and they moved to 8 North Bridge before going to the characterful Croft-an-Righ next to Holyrood Palace, the home of his late grandfather.
He was educated in Edinburgh then studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh specialising in military surgery, winning a prize in a government-sponsored contest for the best essay on feigned diseases. He moved to London in 1836 and gained his doctorate there in 1838. In London he worked at the London Orphan Asylum, the British Penitent Female Refuge, and the Bethnal Green Workhouse. During this time he also lectured in forensic medicine and public hygiene at Charing Cross Hospital.
Prior to his position in the Crimea he worked in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the West Indies.
He was the author of several publications, including Sanitary Ramblings.
At the request of Lord Palmerston and Lord Panmure, Gavin with Dr John Sutherland and Robert Rawlinson headed a Sanitary Commission sent to the Crimean War to improve sanitation in the war hospitals. The Sanitary Commission members arrived in March 1855
However, on 21 April 1855 Gavin died in the accidental discharge of a revolver, caused by his brother William Gavin of the 17th Lancers, a veterinary surgeon, who shared his tent. The gun apparently went off as he handed it to his brother, grip-first, and his brother grabbed it touching the trigger, and firing into Hector's body.
He is memorialised on his family's grave in Old Calton Cemetery. The grave lies immediately north of the distinctive cylindrical tomb of David Hume, behind the Scottish-American War Memorial.
He has a memorial in the Western part of Highgate Cemetery where his wife and son are buried.

Family

In December 1837 he married Margaret Greenfield, daughter of James Greenfield.