Cicely Crewdson, an elegant lady in her late thirties, was on holiday with her father at their family holiday home in the small village of Syde in the Cotswolds. Her holiday was nearly spoiled because she needed urgent treatment for a septic finger. Sepsis was potentially life-threatening in those days before effective antibiotics, such as penicillin, were available. The local doctor was summoned and agreed to come over from the nearby village of Rendcomb to treat Cicely. The doctor’s name was Frederick Sanger and he was still a bachelor. Her treatment would have needed a number of visits by this doctor to see how the patient’s finger was improving. Cicely Crewdson and Frederick Sanger got to know one another and doctor and patient were married in 1916.

We can only guess what attracted Frederick and Cicely to one another but Frederick would have been a quite suitable match for Cicely. Educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, he qualified as a doctor and completed his MD in 1902. Soon after he travelled to China as a missionary where he worked as a hospital doctor and found time, energy and enthusiasm to set up a new school for poorer children who were generally denied the education available for the children of the mandarin or upper-class families. Returning to Devon, his parent’s family home – probably for health reasons in 1912, Frederick then moved with his widowed mother, Ann, to Gloucestershire where he practised as the local doctor. His mother died shortly after the move in 1913.