Author: Dyason, William
Biography:
DYASON, William (1778-1849: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 17 Dec. 1778 at St. Stephen’s, Hackington, Canterbury, Kent, the eldest of at least three children of Joshua Dyason and Elizabeth Tassell, who had married at Swalecliffe, near Whitstable, Kent, on 31 Oct. 1777. He was possibly apprenticed to a surgeon, John Pierce of Canterbury and the County Hospital. He then entered the army. He served as Hospital Mate in Egypt, Malta, Gibraltar, and Menorca, and later as surgeon in the East Kent Regiment of Militia, stationed in Canterbury. He unsuccessfully applied for a post at the County Hospital in June 1803, stating that he was a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons and an Honorary Member of the Medical Surgical and Anatomical Institution of Malta. In 1804 he published Pastoral Poems and Poetical and Prosaic Works. The latter contained miscellaneous medical essays; a loosely autobiographical volume, Idalia Britannica; and an array of verse, including “An Ode to Surgery.” Later that year he served abroad again and in Oct. 1807 was promoted to Assistant Surgeon in the 7th Regiment of Hussars. He probably returned to England in 1808 when he published Poems Elegiac and Amatory and Poetry in Letters and served with the 4th Garrison Regiment of Foot until 1811 when he went on half-pay. Nothing is known of his life in the 1820s and 1830s. At some point he seems to have retired to Tilmanstone, near Eastry, Kent, where he had family. He was still recorded as a surgeon in the 1841 census but does not seem to have practiced. For most of his life he lived on the verge of poverty and several members of his family emigrated to Australia. He died on 2 Apr. 1849 and was buried at St. Andrew’s, Tilmanstone, where there is still a grave. He does not appear to have married. (ancestry.co.uk 1 Jan. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 1 Jan. 2024; The Gazette 26 Mar. 1802, 31 Oct. 1807; Kentish Weekly 1 Apr. and 24 June 1803, 20 Apr. 1804; Daily News 1 May 1849; A General List of the Members of the Royal College of Surgeons [1812], 31; A List of the Officers of the Army [1833], 504, [1846], 407) AA