Additions will be checked before being published on the website and where possible will be forwarded to the person who submitted the original entries. Your contact details will not be forwarded, but they can send a reply via this messaging system.
please scroll down to send a message
Lt. Marwood Mintern Munden CdeG.
British Army Royal Army Medical Corps
from:Chalford, Somerset
Born at Ilminster, Somerset on 13th of June 1885, Marwood Mintern Munden (always called Mintern by the family) was the seventh of eight children, and third son, of Dr Charles Munden and Jane Lucy nee Poole, of Silver Street, Ilminster. His father was a General Practitioner and Surgeon: Mintern had three brothers, all four of whom fought in France during WW1, one in the RAMC, one driving ammunition trucks, and the third with the Somerset Light Infantry. Three of the four, including Mintern, returned home safely. His unusual names came from a previous family surname (a distant relative Thomas Cuff married an Ann Mintern in 1773) and from the name of the doctor (Dr Charles Hawkes Marwood Mules) to whom Mintern's father was articled when first training in the late 1850s.
The 1891 Census shows Mintern still living at home with his parents, aged 5, described as a scholar. By 1901 he was attending (with his brother Henley, also later a doctor in the RAMC) the Misses Alston and Rawes Boys and Girls Preparatory School, at Mary Street House in Taunton (this was also the school that his two other brothers Charles George and William Poole Henley attended, as noted in the 1891 Census). He later attended Crewkerne Grammar School before deciding to follow his father into the medical profession . I have an address for him, from the address book of his brother, Charles George Munden, which shows him at Medical School, living in Honour Gate Park and then Stondon Park, in London SE23. In 1911, Mintern completed his medical training at Guys Hospital (as had his father in the 1860s), qualifying MRCS Eng. and LRCP (London), and registering as a Medical Practitioner on 10 November 1911, becoming a house surgeon. In 1912 he married with Alice Archer, daughter of Mrs Emily Keith Archer and the late Henry Archer of Alfaxton, Holford, Somerset, taking up a general medical practice at Chalford, Gloucestershire in 1912 - though the 1913 Medical Directory still shows his address as Silver Street, Ilminster.
Mintern and Alices first child, Charles Harry Munden, was born on 10 May 1913, but died before his first birthday, on 18 March 1914. Kellys 1914 Directory shows him as physician and surgeon, medical officer and public vaccinator Sapperton District, Cirencester Union and 5th district, Stroud Union. His address was Wickham Grange, Chalford: a photograph of him and his two sons (see following page), taken in c1919, appears to be on the steps at the front of the Grange, suggesting he lived there for some years. A second child, Richard Cuff Munden, was born on 22 October 1915. (Richard died in Egypt in 1950 ).
In 1916 (according to family stories) Mintern joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in France in 1916 and went to France with the Royal Fusiliers though the Army List and the London Gazette show he was commissioned Temporary Lieutenant on 12 February 1918 and resigned his commission on 20 December 1918. We know very little about the specific detail of his time in the Army. The Guys Hospital Reports records that he served in the 89th Field Ambulance (29th Division) in 1917 and with 2nd battalion of the Royal Fusiliers from 1917 to 1918 (again, I have been unable to confirm these details. Although I have obtained access to copies of the War Diary for 2nd Royal Fusiliers, there is no mention by name to Mintern. I have yet to obtain access to the War Diary for the 89th Field Ambulance.
A short description of the functions of the Field Ambulance, and the movements of the 29th division, to which the Royal Fusiliers belonged, is detailed at Appendix 1 to this document).
During this time he won the Belgian Croix de Guerre, reportedly for evacuating Belgian wounded under shell-fire (but note that I have not been able to find official corroboration of this award being made). This award had been instituted on 25 October 1915 to recognise formally acts of heroism performed by individuals of any of the Allied powers during World War I, whilst on Belgian soil. The medal was awarded for Mention in Dispatches by differing levels of command, which was shown by the attachment to the ribbon (bronze palm = awarded by the army; bronze lion = regiment; gold lion = land forces). The ribbon was red with five green stripes.
After the War, Mintern returned to Chalford. As rents had increased considerably, he bought �The Triangle� at Eastcombe, modernising it to incorporate a new surgery. This property had previously been a small-holding with a number of outbuildings and the new surgery was actually built from a converted pigsty. His telephone number was Brimcombe 45. Two further children were born after the War: John Mintern Munden on 23 April 1918 and Lucy Joyce Munden, on 17 January 1921. Both were born at Chalford.
As well as running the practice on his own, Mintern kept up an interest in sport. A family photograph in 1893 shows him with a cricket bat; in 1908 he played three matches for Somerset (Wisden shows 3 matches, 5 innings, total 31 runs, highest score 11, average 6.2, but no bowling figures); he had played rugby and cricket for Guy�s and had toured overseas with its rugby team. After the war he ran the Gloucester Gypsies cricket team, recruited from Cheltenham College, and used to take them on a fortnight�s tour of the West Country, playing club and ground at Taunton and Devonshire Dumplings at Plymouth. He was also a member of the Stroud Cricket Club which he captained for some years and was President after he finished playing; and was a founder member of the Cheltenham Steeplechase Club.
He also had an interest in field sports: a fine fly fisherman, he held various stretches of river in the district, enjoyed shooting over farms of patients and syndicates and also went on fishing holidays with the family. In the early 1930s he was whipper-in for the South Cotswold Beagles and the family used to walk beagle puppies. During this time he collaborated with Dr Patrick Playfair Laidlaw, who had been at Guy�s Hospital with him. Dr Laidlaw was awarded the Royal Society�s Medal in 1933 for his work on diseases due to viruses and who started the inoculation for distemper in dogs (see Appendix 1 for a description of this work). Mintern used to inoculate all his own dogs, and those of his friends, as well as the Cotswold Beagles� pack, and would advise Dr Laidlaw of the results. He was also a Freemason, and according to his family practised his speeches in the bath. From 1939 to 1945, Mintern was President of the local British Legion and Medical Officer to the local Home Guard.
Mintern died on 8 March 1952 at Eastcombe, Gloucestershire, aged 66, having worked in the practice until a few days earlier � he had always said that he would never retire. His estate was announced in the London Gazette on 22 April 1952. His wife and two of their four children survived him: one son had died young in 1914, and another son (in the Gloster Regiment) died of polio whilst serving with the Army in Fayid, Egypt, in 1950. After Mintern�s death, his wife built a bungalow on some land adjoining the practice and lived there with her daughter Joy. Mrs Alice Munden died in 1973.
