Edward Wrench and the life-cycles of the Victorian GP
The life of Edward Wrench, a General Practitioner at Baslow in Derbyshire, represents a wide range of different life cycles which are detailed in his diary. He practised in the second half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century and is very much a man whose life represents many of the shifts in professional and family life during this period. These life cycle changes encompass his scientific, family, and medical life. He represents changing attitudes to religion, from starting his practice as a born-again Christian to becoming an agnostic by the 1870s. His diaries represent changing ideas around women particularly in reference to his own daughters, detail various stages of family life from birth to death as well as the rapidly developing medical skills of Victorian doctors. This paper will thus explore, family life cycles from birth to death, investigate the changing life of Victorian GPs, and examine how science affected religious life. Wrench’s diaries provide a unique insight into the life cycle of family and medicine across the rapidly changing world of Victorian England.
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This page was last updated on 25 April 2025
