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Dictionary of Miramichi Biography

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BENSON, STAFFORD (1809-1870)

BENSON, STAFFORD, doctor; b. Northam, Devonshire, England, 28 Feb 1809 (bap. 6 Mar 1809), s/o John Benson and Ann Husband; m. 1835, Sophia Elizabeth Samuel, d/o Michael Samuel and Mary Catherine Parker; d. Chatham, 8 Jul 1870.

Stafford Benson concluded his medical studies in London, England, in 1831 and was admitted to membership in the Royal College of Surgeons of London. In 1832 he arrived on the Miramichi as a surgeon's mate on a warship and took up residence at John Hea's Hotel. For many years afterwards (except for the period 1843-46, which he and his family spent in England) he was a leading medical figure on the Miramichi, being both a private practitioner and official physician to the Micmac population of the county. In 1847 he was appointed surgeon of the 3rd Battalion of militia. He was also a coroner.

A lifelong desire of Benson's was to have a hospital established on the Miramichi, other than the Marine Hospital, which was not open to the public. He therefore responded enthusiastically to the founding of the Hotel Dieu in 1869 by the Religious Hospitallers of St Joseph. Possibly because his wife was an heir to the Samuel family fortune, he was able to make his services available to the hospital free of charge. Before his death in 1870 he secured a promise from his son Dr John S. Benson to follow his lead. Although the free service model was eventually superseded by a voluntary payment arrangement, both Dr John S. Benson and his brother Dr Joseph B. Benson contributed their time liberally to the Hotel Dieu. They were joined in their efforts there in 1881 by Dr John MacDonald.

Benson sometimes addressed meetings of the Mechanics' Institutes on medical topics, such as "Comparative Anatomy," on which he spoke to the Miramichi Mechanics in 1848, or "The Eye," which was the topic of his address to the Newcastle and Douglastown Institute in 1850. On 6 October 1855 he presided over a noisy public dinner at the Bowser House in Chatham, at which residents of the town did their part to celebrate the fall of Sevastopol in the Crimea.

Benson sat on the board of trustees of the County Grammar School for a number of years and was a member of St Paul's Anglican Church, which has a stained glass window in memory of him and his wife, Sophia E. Samuel. At the time of his death in 1870, at age sixty-one, he was president of St George's Society of Miramichi. "Big, gruff, [and] caustic," he was nonetheless "good humored." His survivors were his wife, who lived until 1888, and nine children.

Sources

[b/d] Advocate 14 Jul 1870 [bap] LDS-IGI [m] Gleaner 27 Oct 1835 / Advance 29 Dec 1881, 26 Jul 1888; Barnes's; Commercial World 28 Jul 1949; Facey-Crowther; Fraser (C); Gleaner 13 Nov 1832, 19 Sep 1846, 18 Apr 1848; Hutchison papers; RHSJ archives (Chatham); Spray (DK); Stewart


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