Dr Mary Prowse Gell
Title: Dr
Epithet: Medical missionary and co-founder of War on Want (1894-1978)
Record type: Biographies
Biography: From ‘New Manx Worthies’ (2006):
Mary Gell was the second child of Evan Gell and Helena Prowse. Evan was the third son of John Gell, MHK, CP, of Kennaa, German, the second son being Dr Harry Gell. Mary's mother died when she was three months old, and her father died when she was four months. Her first years were spent with her Prowse grandmother who appears to have been a cripple, and who was nursed by her daughter, Mary's Aunt Gertrude. The grandmother died in 1901 and by 1902 Mary had been 'adopted' by her Uncle Harry and was based at Victoria House, Peel. She was four years older than Harry's only child, Joyce.
Whilst she was at school, she helped her uncle in his dispensary. When she reached the age of 21, she appears to have come into a small legacy, probably in trust from her father and mother. At all events, she struck out on her own and attended Sheffield University Medical School from 1916 to 1922. Having specialised in midwifery and gynaecology at Jessop Hospital, she qualified MB, Ch.B in 1922 and for two years held resident surgical appointments at Sheffield Royal Hospital.
In 1924 she travelled to China as a medical missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, arriving in Shanghai in December and going on to Peking to language school. In the following year she was appointed Medical Officer in Charge at a hospital in Ping-ying in the province of Shantung. She was there through all the major disturbances associated with the rise of Chiang Kai-Shek, from August 1925 to April1927, at which date the evacuation of all foreigners in out-stations was ordered. She moved on to the Peking Union Medical College for postgraduate work, and became assistant in obstetrics and gynaecology for a term of six months.
In January 1928 Mary was invited to join the staff of Cheeloo University Medical School in the capital city of Shantung, Tsinan-fu, combining both teaching and medical practice. In 1931 there were terrible floods in the Yangtze Valley and the huge city of Hankow was under nearly 20ft. of water. She was seconded there to set up emergency hospitals, cholera and dysentery being rife. After the emergency she was lent to the Union Hospital, Hankow, because the head of the midwifery school had died. She ran the centre as well as doing general medicine. She returned to Cheeloo in April 1934 to take charge of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. In July 1937 the Sino-Japanese War broke out. It was the precursor of World War II in the Far East and all skilled Chinese staff fled to West China, leaving the foreigners to take all the responsibility both in the city and out-stations.
Japan declared war in December 1941, and Cheeloo University was occupied and looted. Foreigners were taken by road, barge and train down to Shanghai and there installed in an American Country Club. After about a year Mary, together with three other doctors, was ordered to be interned up-country in a complex of three 'prison' camps at Yang Chow, just north of the Yangtze River. There she remained until late 1945. After repatriation and a period of recuperation, she was appointed to the headquarters of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in London and put in charge of the selection, training and appointments of all medical missionary personnel. In the course of this work she made an extensive tour for the society to southern Africa. In 1964, at 70 years of age, she came back to the Isle of Man to nurse her cousin Mary Gell, of Riversdale and Cronk Mayn, and on the latter's death she bought a small house in Ramsey and settled there.
Mary Prowse Gell was incorrigibly modest, yet even a perfunctory study of her desk reveals her as one of the six founders, along with George Lansbury, of the charity War on Want and a director of that organisation for many years. No mean watercolourist, she was also a writer of poetry; certainly in her late 20s, while in Sheffield, she had several poems in the 'Isle of Man Examiner' and the 'Manx Quarterly' under the mark 'X'. She was a devoted churchwoman who more than practised tithe. Innumerable organisations and people benefited each year from her (almost invariably) anonymous benefactions.
She entered hospital on 2nd May 1976 and died there on 31st October 1978. Her ashes lie in Peel Cemetery. In her obituary 'The Lancet' described her as 'A leading gynaecologist of her day'. She would not have approved of the public tribute to her qualities.
Biography written by J. Stowell Kenyon.
(With thanks to Culture Vannin as publishers of the book: Kelly, Dollin (general editor), ‘New Manx Worthies’, Manx Heritage Foundation/Culture Vannin, 2006, pp.187-8.)
Culture Vannin
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Nationality: English
Gender: Female
Date of birth: 16 June 1894
Date of death: 31 October 1978
Name Variant: Gell, Mary P., Dr