Some weeks ago a large English Bible was donated to a local charity shop following a house clearance. Inside the front cover was an interesting inscription relating to a Reverend John Swete DD and his service as Curate to Bristol Gaol in 1851.
How did this bible come to be in Fishguard? A little research revealed its connection to a much loved and respected GP and Surgeon who served the town during the 1890s.
Firstly, who was the Reverend John Swete DD ? Well, he was born in 1791 in Somerset although educated in Cork and Dublin. He was initially a medical student at Trinity College but did not complete Honours and instead transferred to study Theology. His strong Calvinistic views however meant that he was not permitted to be ordained in the Church of Ireland and so instead came to England where he received his ordination. His career centred primarily around the Bristol area where he also became a headteacher (although he had no formal teaching qualifications) of a boys’ school for over 20 years. He returned to the church and became curate of St Mary’s Redcliffe. Interestingly, there is no mention in various biographies of his period as chaplain to Bristol Gaol.
He was widowed twice and the father of twelve children although only 6 survived to adulthood. Consumption (TB) was a family weakness. Of his two surviving sons, Ernest Horatio Swete was the eldest.
Ernest Horatio Swete MD was a learned man and 
became a renowned surgeon and writer of many published works. One of his great achievements was as founder of the Cottage Hospital movement which he started in 1859 with the opening of Crawley Cottage Hospital.
These hospitals, on average had only six beds and were located in towns and villages to enable patients to remain within their community and be tended by the local surgeon. It was recognised then, that patients were much happier having the opportunity to stay close to home.
Dr Swete was the father of nine children – the eldest of whom was Horace Lawton Swete born in 1861.
It is at this point that there is a Fishguard connection.
Horace Lawton Swete, like his father, was a doctor and surgeon. In 1889, together with his young wife he came to Fishguard to take over a General Practice and become one of the surgeons for the town. Sadly after seven years of marriage, his wife died. After his wife’s death he continued to live in Castle Hill and, following in his father’s footsteps, was the instigator of the opening of a Cottage Hospital in Main Street in 1895. see Fishguard Cottage Hospital
As well as serving as Surgeon and secretary to the Cottage 
Hospital he was very active within the town – he served as Manager of the National and County Schools, County Councillor, Parish Councillor, Justice of the Peace, served as General Secretary of the 1897 Last Invasion Committee, on committees of the RNLI, Fishguard Cattle Show, Fishguard Regatta, Tennis and Cricket Clubs, a Freemason and was surgeon to the local Order of Foresters. He was also a Churchman of considerable repute.
He married again in 1895 and he and his wife had two children before his sudden death in the summer of 1901 at the age of 39. A third child was born weeks later. His death came as a profound shock to all townspeople.
It was reported in the County Echo (15/8/1901) that “few men occupied such a prominent position in the town and his loss would be keenly felt in as much as he was one of the very few who endeavoured to, by both example and speech to infuse into the place a spirit of loyalty to Fishguard and a desire to further its welfare.”
A report of the funeral in the County Echo on 5th September stated that “it is no exaggeration to say that nine tenths of the population of this little market town were present in pouring rain, to pay a last tribute of respect to this loyal Churchman. No such gathering has ever been witnessed in the parish within the memory of the oldest inhabitant. Business was suspended and every house had its blinds drawn on this sad day. ………….the poor have lost a kind sympathetic friend, the clergy a willing helper and the Church a faithful son.”
It was decided to erect a brass lectern in St Mary’s Church in memory of Dr Swete.
His widow, Jessie Blanche Swete, following her husband’s death, appears to have moved from Castle Hill to Rock House on Tower Hill where she lived for many years before joining her daughter Margaret in Letterston where she died in 1957 having been a widow for 56 years.
Of the 3 children, the eldest John, died in 1933. He had been an inpatient of the Royal Earlswood Institution for those suffering from mental handicap – he was 35 years old. Margaret, born in 1899 became a GP and worked during the 1930s in Cardiff and Nottingham. Later, she appears to have had a surgery in Haverfordwest but lived for the latter part of her life in Letterston. Margaret did not marry and died in 1969.
The youngest child, Ella Lawton Swete who was born shortly after her father’s death, married a Letterston boy and lived at Greenfield, Letterston. Ella died in 1993 at the age of 92, Her daughter, Janet Brown (nee Watts) predeceased her in 1984. Janet appears to have been childless. Ella also had two sons, Lawton Watts, who followed his father in that he too was an auctioneer and a younger son, Joseph Watts.
The passing of the bible, presented to Rev. John Swete DD in 1851, from eldest son to eldest son, explains its arrival in Fishguard but what happened to it after the death of Dr Lawton is not known – it is thought to have been in St Mary’s Church for some years although this is not certain.
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