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Brought to you from the forthcoming book by renowned historian
Dr. Lennox Honychurch.
Nicholls, Sir Henry Alfred Alford (1851-1926) ()
Medical doctor, horticulturist, legislator and publicist for Dominica. Along with his mentor Dr. John Imray, and particularly after Imray's death in 1880, Nicholls bestrode the life of Dominica like a colossus and was called at times "The uncrowned king of Dominica." Born in London in 1851, he studied medicine at the Universities of Aberdeen and London (St. Bartholomew's Hospital). During his long and successful medical and horticultural career he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, Member of the New York Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Linnean Society. Nicholls arrived in Dominica in 1873 as an assistant to Imray and in 1877 married Dominican, Marion Crompton. He built on the firm foundations that Imray had laid in instituting and expanding the work of the Board of Health, developing the Roseau hospital from its position as an infirmary, leading the expansion of the island health service in an island with no roads, fighting ignorance and superstition in an effort to make vaccination compulsory and in dealing with yaws, alastrim, malaria, yellow fever and other diseases afflicting the population at the time. He combined work with research and published his findings in medical journals in Britain, which attracted much attention.
Nicholls took a keen interest in the natural history of Dominica; opening up and publicising the Boiling Lake from the time he led the first recorded visit there in 1875. He guided the future King George V and his brother Prince Albert Victor to the summit of Morne Diablotin in 1880. He corresponded with the curators of Kew Gardens in England and was influential in the establishment of the Botanic Gardens in Roseau in 1891. He was a world expert on tropical agriculture publishing an influential work "A Textbook of Tropical Agriculture" which was used throughout the British Empire and was translated into several languages. He inherited land from Dr. Imray, most notably St. Aroment, and owned several estates in his own right. But Nicholls was more successful as a physician and horticulturist than he was a would-be politician. He was defeated by members of the so-called "Mulatto Ascendancy" whenever he contested an election but he was an officially nominated member of the legislature as Senior Medical Officer for many years, served on various select committees, was a magistrate for a few years and a member of the Executive Council of the Leeward Islands. He acted as Administrator of Dominica from time to time. He was a leading member of the Anglican Church and as a mark of honour he was buried next to the church in Roseau. The Alford Ward at the PMH is named after him.
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