ALFRED SMITH’S WAY

 Alfred Smith was a remarkable man of many parts. He was born in Grimsby in 1872 and started his working life at Grimsby General hospital where he studied pharmacy and dentistry before moving to London to take up the study of bacteriology in addition. Now his real life’s work began; he was chosen to travel to Germany to study with the great Roentgen, the discoverer of X-rays. After a year or so, in 1897, Alfred accompanied Roentgen to introduce the use of X-rays to Britain. He became one of a small band of X-ray pioneers in this country and in 1906 he took charge of the Dispensing and X-ray departments of the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital.

At this stage X-rays were considered to be nothing short of a miracle that would bring incalculable benefits to many thousands of people. No-one suspected that it could also be dangerous and the X-ray pioneers were exposed to many hours of radiation as part of their work, often using themselves as guinea pigs. By 1913 Alfred had contracted what came to be called X-ray dermatitis. Of course, it proved to be incurable and Alfred was one of the eighteen early workers with X-rays who suffered lingering, painful deaths. Alfred himself was stoical about his condition – when a newspaper reporter who interviewed him in his last year of life (1932) wanted to describe him as a “hero” his response was “cut out the sob stuff, we worked in ignorance and we suffered for it. That’s all that can be said about it.”

His condition gradually deteriorated and by 1918 he had spent four-and-a-half-years in a hospital bed, undergone 17 operations, lost his right leg and become partially blind. By this time all his savings had gone and everything he owned of any value, including his precious X-ray equipment had been sold. Absolute poverty , except for a small pension from the Carnegie Hero Trust, appeared to be his family’s lot.

For some undisclosed reason Alfred and his wife, at some time in the mid twenties decided to move back to Lincolnshire and having tried various locations in the county ended up living in an old army hut which still stands in Legbourne and where they decided to set up a small poultry farm drawing on Alfred’s knowledge of poultry keeping (a man of many parts !). Something must have gone wrong with this venture – perhaps Mrs Smith found the work too much for her – because they moved out of Legbourne into a tumble down cottage in Carlton.

In Carlton amazingly Alfred re-discovered an ability to build radio sets ( a man of many parts!) – “the wireless” was a relatively new invention at the time. After he had made a few for local people a prominent citizen of Louth, Alderman Maxey called on Alfred to order one and was appalled to see the conditions in which the Smiths were living. “There was a table, a chair and an old box in the room and that was all “, he recalled. He heard their story and was deeply moved that this man whose life’s work had benefitted the lives of so many was living in such circumstances. He contacted a national newspaper and the subsequent article resulted in money gifts pouring into the appeal fund he had set up such that in 1929 it could finance the building of a bungalow in Station Rd. Legbourne. It still stands and still bears the name Alfred chose - “Maxeymum”.

He spent his last few months in bed, unable to even turn over without help. His life became just a matter of waiting for the end which came on January 28th 1933. He was buried in Scartho Cemetery on February 1st. He was survived by his wife and seven year old Alec who became an electrician and lived and worked in Legbourne until his death twenty years ago.