I have unearthed some very interesting facts about Ed and My families.
For Ed we already had the knowledge but hazy that he was a descendent of the surgeon 
DOCTOR THOMAS ESHELBY, who was the surgeon employed on ship and had the task of 
amputating Nelson's arm.  I have traced Dr Thomas as being a few times great Uncle.

For me was the true surprise that my granny was the daughter of a gypsy who had 
married a gorgio, non 
gypsy.  I have found many members of my family equally shocked but fascinated.  We 
come from a long line of Buckinghamshire Gypsies called Buckland, who were connected 
with the Coopers and Roberts.

I have joined WebSites which bear information about the Romanies and have learned far 
more than I can put here.  A little background ... As a family travelled from one 
district to another, their names might be changed back and forth; they might be known 
as Smiths in Gloucestershire and Bucklands in Oxfordshire, and so on. They thought of 
themselves solely as 'show people', would have intensely disliked any references to 
their ancestors as 'Gypsies' or even 'Romanies', but - whether they were or were not - 
this is how they were described by the many people who studied them and wrote about 
them. When asked about their origins, most referred to themselves simply as travellers.

In 'Round About the Upper Thames' (1922), Alfred Williams wrote, 'Gipsies swarmed 
about the Cotswolds during the fore part of the nineteenth century ...'The counties 
through which the young Thames with its contributories, then the Vale of the White 
Horse and the Cotswolds run - Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and 
Warwickshire - were most certainly strongholds for the Bucklands and their kith and 
kin during these times.

The old Bucklands are chosen as the back bone of this family history because of their 
large numbers and because they married into and influenced the lives of so many other 
travelling families - as well as a great many of the non-travelling inhabitants of the 
areas they worked. Their 'travelling' descendants of today are just the tip of a great 
hidden mountain of 'settled' descendants who live what are considered to be more 
conventional lives -  being totally unaware of the past rich culture of their 
ancestry, and the interest aroused from the mid nineteenth century into the early part 
of the twentieth century amongst a certain  group of enthusiasts describing themselves 
as Romany Rais' or 'Gypsiologists‘.

Details from the families researched here show that cousin marriages were quite common 
and individuals frequently found partners who were related to them in some way or 
another, which is one explanation for their tenacity in preserving their way of life 
for so long in the face of harassment and outright persecution. Members of the Gypsy 
Lore Society discussed this trait among travelling people and used it in trying to 
decide their exact origins. For example, it was  pointed out that marriage of the 
children of brothers and sisters (first cousins) was regarded as an 'orthodox union' 
and was 'widespread in India'. Whereas, in Gypsy culture, there was 'a greater number 
of marriages between the children of brothers (i.e. marriage of partners with the same 
family name) which was also regarded as orthodox in Egypt and among others of the 
Semitic peoples. 

Leonard lng shares my great grandmother and his enthusiastic research over many years, 
after discovering with some surprise that his grandmother Tryphena Buckland was the 
grand-daughter Joseph 'Doctor' Buckland - was  a 'Gypsy'.  Leonard accumulated a great 
knowledge of the history of the Bucklands during his quest for the roots of our family 
and was a member of the Gypsy Law Society and have a copy of his Buckland Index of 
Names.

DRTHOMAS ESHELBY SURGEON & LORD NELSON

Thomas Eshelby, born 1777 qualified as a doctor at age of 20. After 8 years of naval 
experience, whilst Surgeon on board the ship Thescus he, together with his surgeon’s 
mate, a 24 year old French loyalist refuge on October 21st 1805 in the early hours of 
the morning in the cold cockpit of the ship Thescus did perform the amputation of Lord 
Nelson’s right arm.

Eshelby’s note in the daily medical journal recorded….”….Admiral Nelson had a compound 
fracture of right arm by musket ball passing through just above elbow and artery 
divided in the arm.  Arm was amputated….”  

The tourniquet is preserved and displayed in the Welcome Museum History of Medicine, 
London.  It is almost impossible today to picture the tossing of the waves and the 
groans of the wounded.  Nelson found the worse upset was the cold knife which cut into 
his flesh.  Later, he ordered that hot water should in future be available to warm the 
amputation knives.  The operation was performed in semi darkness on the famous 
patient.  Dr Eshelby applied a silk ligature around the artery.  

The following day, Dr Eshelby recorded that Nelson rested well and partook of tea, 
soup and s     lemonade..  July 29th the stump looked well and no adverse symptoms had 
occurred  the size of a shilling.  Thereafter, Admiral Nelson suffered pain in the 
stump for several months but then the ligature came away in the dressing and from that 
moment the pain was gone.
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…………….recommended that Nelson see a London surgeon better qualified than he; 
consultation cost a guinea. Impressed by his patient. Falconer's wife later related to 
Fanny that, had he been single he would have signed up to join Nelson. His surgeon, Mr 
Nicolls at 14 Queen Square, quite close to the Nelson lodgings, dressed the wound 
daily while Nelson was in Bath. Its apothecary was Nelson's former landlord Joseph 
Spry of 2 Pierrepont Street.

It be wound, according to the practice by which Nelson's arm was amputated, was to 
leave the "long silk ligatures hanging out of the wound after the operation, so that 
as suppuration took place and the ligatures separated by necrosis and granulation, 
they could be pulled out the second or fourth weeks' says Surgeon Commander Pugh in 
A'p/son and his Surgeons. There is a lot of discussion as to the best technique, with 
various opinions offered, suffice it to say that, thankfully. Nelson survived and was 
a testament to the surgeon Thomas Eshelby and subsequent after-care.