On this day in 1567, surgeon Thomas Gale “citizen and barbour surgion of London beinge sicke in bodye but whole in mynde and of good and perfect memory” made his will. In it a legacy to the Masters of the Company of Barbers and Surgeons of London was promised, on condition that they brought his body to church for burial. He was interred at St Dionis Backchurch on 15 August.
Gale was one of the first members of the Company of Barbers and Surgeons, and was a noted figure in early surgical writing in English, including, in Certaine Workes of Chirurgerie (1563) treatises on the treatment of gunshot wounds.
Apprenticed to Richard Ferris (Master 1551, 1562) Gale was practicing in London by the 1520s, and served as a surgeon with the army of Henry VIII at the siege of Montreuil in September 1544, and under Philip II of Spain in the battle of St Quentin in August 1557. He wrote afterwards of working at Montreuil to remove unqualified practitioners he described as “sowgelders, tinkers and cobblers.” He also railed against what he considered quack treatment in London, writing of witnessing at St Bartholomew’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in 1562 “three hundred and odd poor people that were diseased….brought to this mischief by witches, by women, by counterfeit rogues.”
Master of the Company in 1561, Gale made an appearance that year in the Diary of Henry Machyn, winning an archery competition:
“The twentieth day of June was a great shooting of the Company of the Barber Surgeons for a great supper at their own hall, for a thirty mess of meat of, for they did make two goodly streamers against that day of their arms. The which they were augmented by the most valiant king at arms, Mr. … And they had six drums playing and a flute and two great ensigns. And as a shot was won, down went it and up the other and as they won the shot. And Mr. Gall and his side won the supper—the master of the company”
