Robert Lax. Surgeon and Apothecary 11, Queen Square

Extracts from Munro Smith’s A History of the Bristol Royal Infirmary:

Page 175 - Robert Lax dined with Joseph Metford, 19 February 1818, passing the evening in a pleasant recollection of past times, together with Dr Thomas Griffiths, Dr Thomas Webb Dyer, Richard Smith, William Hetling, Richard Lowe, Henry Daniel, Nathaniel Smith, Richard Edgell, and William Swayne.

Note: five of the above, Lax, Hetling, Nathaniel Smith, Edgell, and Daniel, had been founder members of the Medical Reading Society in 1807; Swayne became a member in 1818.

Page 208 - in the context of Mr Bowles anatomical instruction of students at the infirmary, Robert Lax and others “ played the part of the Resurrection Men and procured Subjects in succession. In doing this we more than once got ourselves into awkward scrapes, and one night Mr Robert Lax and Richard Smith narrowly escaped being shot by some soldiers occupying a Hospital which commanded the Infirmary burial-ground in Johnny Ball Lane.”

A footnote describes Robert Lax as a much esteemed practitioner, who lived in Queen Square, and afterwards in Park Street Bristol. He applied for the Surgeoncy at the Infirmary on the death of FC Bowles. He died April 4, 1832.

Page 246 - after the trial of Richard Perry (for abduction), Perry met Richard Smith accidentally on August 1, 1794, in the Strand, and was invited to dine at the Archery House, Highgate, together with Robert Lax, then a medical student, and Thomas Brickenden.