1. The Caicos Islands, West Indies

Notes on Life and Works

Gilbert E. Brooke was born March 28, 1873, at Hyères, France, and educated at Monkton Combe School near Bath (1884-88), Pensionnat Georgens, Ouchy, Switzerland (1889-90), Pembroke College, Cambridge (B.A. 1894; M.A., 1901), London Hospital (1894-96; L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S.), and Edinburgh (1897; D.P.H. 1902). After signing on as a ship's surgeon, Brooke became Government medical officer in the Turks and Caicos Islands in Sept. 1897. He and Alice Marie Swabey had married on Oct. 6, 1897, at Widcombe Old Church, Bath. His local responsibilities expanded there in 1899 to be J.P. for Turks Islands, District Commissioner, and Police Magistrate and Coroner, and in 1900 to be Receiver of Wreck, Caicos Islands, and Marriage Officer. He went on leave 1901-02 for further study at Edinburgh and afterwards emigrated to Singapore. He became Port Health Officer there in Jan. 1902 and set down roots. By 1905 he was a Lecturer in Hygiene, Singapore Medical School, and his career advanced as he became Deputy Coroner, Singapore (1906), and then J.P. for Singapore (1908). Brooke published two textbooks in tropical medicine this year and the next. These credentials helped him to rise to Acting Government Veterinary Surgeon (1911-12) and Chief Health Officer, Singapore (Jan. 1914). Brooke's broad interests extended to verse and local history. The prefatory note to Oddments, dated July 1922, explains that his poems has been printed before in the Royal Standard, Turks and Caicos Islands, W.I., the Singapore Free Press, the Sydney Daily Telegraph, the Bath and Wilts Chronicle, the Bath Chronicle, the Straits Times (of Singapore), the Malayan Review, and elsewhere. His service in the Turks and Caicos Islands and Singapore earned him a fellowship with the Royal Geographical Society. He and his wife Alice had five children.

• Brooke, Gilbert Edward. Aids to Tropical Medicine (London: Baillière, 1908. Also 1915, 1927. Revised J. C. Broom, 1942.

• --. Brooke of Horton in the Cotswolds with Notes on some other Brooke Families. Singapore: Methodist Publishing House, 1918. 9907.ee.9 British Library

• --. Essentials of Sanitary Science. London: H. Kimpton, 1909. RA 425 .B66 Gerstein Library

• --. Marine Hygiene and Sanitation. London: Baillière, 1920.

• --. Medico-Tropical Practice: A Handbook for Medical Practioners and Students. 2nd edn. 1908: London: C. Griffin, 1920. 7307.a.10 [signed at Bath, Dec. 1919] British Library

• --. Oddments: Being Extracts from a Scrap-book. Singapore: Kelly and Walsh, 1922. British Library 012273.aaa.73

• Makepeace, Walter, Gilbert E. Brooke and Roland St. J. Braddell, eds. One Hundred Years of Singapore. 2 vols. London: Murray, 1921. DS 610.5 .O54 1921 Robarts Library

Biographical information

Given name: Gilbert E.
Family name: Brooke
Birth date: 28 March 1873
Death date: 1936
Nationality: English
Family relations
          wife: Alice Marie Brooke
Education
          Monkton Combe School, near Bath, England: 1884 to 1888
          Pensionnat Georgens, Ouchy, Switzerland: 1889 to 1890
          Pembroke College, Cambridge (B.A.) to 1894
          Pembroke College, Cambridge (M.A.) to 1901
          London Hospital (L.R.C.P.): 1894 to 1896
          London Hospital (L.R.C.S.): 1894 to 1896
          Edinburgh (D.P.H.) to 1902
Honour: Fellow, Royal Geographical Society
Literary period: Georgian
Occupations
          Physician: 1897
          Ship's Surgeon: 1897 to 1897
          Justice of the Peace: 1899
          Lecturer: 1905
          Coroner: 1906
Residences
          Hyères, France: 1873
          Bath, England: 1884 to 1888
          Ouchy, Switzerland: 1889 to 1890
          Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England: 1894
          London, England: 1894 to 1896
          Edinburgh, Scotland: 1897
          Turks and Caicos Islands: 1897 to 1900
          Edinburgh, Scotland: 1901 to 1902
          Singapore: 1902
First RPO edition: 2001