William Allan May

A chromotype carte-de-visite portrait of William Allen May of the Royal Army Medical Corps.

An inked inscription verso in a period hand reads ‘W. Allan May / Army Med. Dept. / Nov. 4, 1879 [or possibly 1874].’

Born on 18 September 1850 at Stoke Damerel in Devon, William Allan May was the son of magistrate and surgeon Joseph May and his wife Elizabeth.

Educated at Tavistock Grammar School and the University of London, in 1873 he was passed his apothecary examination while working at Guy’s Hospital. The following year he gave evidence in a trial and was described as ‘M.R.C.S.’ [Member of the Royal College of Surgeons].

William joined the Army in September 1874, becoming a surgeon in the Army Medical Staff.

On 3 February 1876 ‘William Allan May, surgeon, Army Medical Staff,’ married ‘Cecilia Adèle Aloisa, elder daughter of Gustav von Oehlhaffen, magistrate of the Northern District.’ The marriage took place ‘at Fort Cairns, Orange Walk, B[ritish] Honduras’ [renamed Belize in 1973], ‘After a Civil Ceremony before the magistrate at Fort Mundy’ (The Hour, 18 March 1876).

The couple appear on the 1881 census living at Stoke Damerel in Devon with Cecilia’s younger sister Adelaide. William gave ‘Surgeon, MRCS, Army Med. Dept.’ as his profession.

In 1911 they were living at Cheltenham in Gloucestershire with two live-in servants, a cook and a parlourmaid. Their marriage had produced no children. William now described himself as a ‘Retired Colonel of the Army on Pension.’

Colonel William Allan May died, aged 86, on 18 May 1937 at Stratton House, Park Lane, Bath. At the time of his death, he was living at the Hotel Regina, Bennett Street, Bath. He left an estate valued at £18,623.

‘He gave his medals and Order of the Bath to his nephew, William Lawrence Steele, and such of his clothes as he may select to Frank Heal, boots at the Hotel Regina’ (Dundee Evening Telegraph, 14 August 1937).

Photographed by John Hawke of Plymouth.