Firth, Dr Sydney – Grantham GP was tried for murder

Dr Sydney Firth (1866- ?)

DR Sydney Firth, who lived at Lindis House, Dudley Road, was not a conventional GP.

It all started so well. Born in Halifax, he went to Victoria University, Leeds, Anderson’s University, Glasgow, St Mungo’s College and Glasgow Royal infirmary.

He married Martha Mackay, of Paisley in 1892, when the 26-year old had already established his practice as a physician and surgeon on Avenue Road, Grantham.

Grantham Friendly and Trade Societies Medical Institute presented him with a marble clock on the occasion while the town’s Oddfellows gave the couple cutlery.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before he showed a disregard for authority and conventions.

In 1900 he was insolvent. He told a public examination he had no assets, as his wife and mother-in-law owned
all of his furniture. He had already received 40 County Court summonses.

There followed a string of petty indiscretions.
In 1901 he was fined twice for cycling without lights, once for a breach of the Vaccination Act and again for having no licence for his fox terrier.

Seven years later, now living at Dudley Road, he was fined £2 for contempt in failing to turn up at County Court and £5 the following year for a similar offence.

Later that year, he was committed to the workhouse for eight days charged with being a person of unsound mind wandering at large.

In 1912, again he was fined for having no lights on his bike and threatened with jail by the County Court unless he paid his debts as ordered.

Two years later he was threatened with similar action by the court.

His wife threw him out in 1915, after he kept taking his unqualified nurse, Jennie Harding, on frequent trips to London, instead of her.

It was revealed that his home belonged to his wife’s aunt to whom he owed nine years rent.

His son Billy, 22, said he slept with a revolver under his pillow because of his father’s violence.

The doctor moved in with Mrs Harding and her husband in Cecil Street.

Two years later, he was in serious trouble, charged with wilful murder after performing an abortion in Hull but walked free from York Assizes due to a lack of evidence.

He was fined a further £2 in 1918 after smashing down the Hardings’ door. They threw him out, so he moved to Ropsley where things got even worse.

In 1922 he was jailed for seven years for conducting illegal operations on women at his surgery.

One woman claimed he charged her £100 for ending her pregnancy while another said Firth had demanded £105 but when she told him she could not afford it, he dropped the price to £50.

A police surgeon told the court the instruments he found were legitimate but could be used for illegal operations.

At a meeting of the General Medical Council in London  in December 1922   Dr Firth was ordered to be removed from the Medical Register for unprofessional conduct.