Richard Robert Madden was one of those polymathic doctors of the 19th Century whose medical career, as I observe in passing here, was almost incidental to a life packed with incident and scholarship (thought clearly some disputed aspects of the scholarship) Nevertheless, he evidently rose through the institutional ranks of medical memberships and fellowships – and became a “convert” to homeopathy to boot (at a time when, after all, “mainstream” medicine was not exactly evidence based itself)
For all these achievements, there is a keen poignancy to this plaque. I’ve read (must track down source) that the common contemporary belief that in previous centuries, because of high child mortality, parents did not have the same emotional reaction to the loss of a child than we do now is in fact a myth (I think it was in a rebuttal to one of the historians cited by
Neil Postman in his The Disappearance of Childhood)
In The Church of the Assumption, Booterstown, Dublin we find the above poignant plaque. Here is the text as the above turns out to be a little blurry:
MADDEN. Of your charity pray for the soul of
/Richard Robert Madden, M.D.
/formerly Colonial Secretary
/of Western Australia &c. “A man who loved his Country.”/
Author of “History of United Irishmen” and many other works.
/Remarkable for Talents Piety, and Rectitude, the 21st and last surviving son of/Edward Madden, born in Dublin August 20th 1798 died at Booterstown Feb 5th 1886
/and interred in Donnybrook Churchyard/
also for the soul of his relict Mrs Harriet T Madden, the 21st and last surviving child of
/John Elmslie Esq. Born in London August 4th 1801
/converted by a singular grace to the Catholic Faith in Cuba (circa) 1837
/died at Booterstown Feb 7th 1888/
A woman of rare culture, endowments and piety, a…
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A Medical Education 