31 Facts About Norman Kerr

Norman Shanks Kerr was a Scottish physician and social reformer who is remembered for his work in the British temperance movement.

Norman Kerr originated the Total Abstinence Society and was founder and first president of the Society for the Study and Cure of Inebriety which was founded in 1884.

Norman Kerr was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1873 and was a member of the Obstetrical and Medical Societies of London, the Harveian Society and British Medical Association, being elected to the General Council for the Metropolitan branch.

Norman Shanks Kerr was born at Morrison's Court, Argyle Street, Glasgow, Scotland on 17 May 1834, the eldest son of Alexander Kerr and Helen Kerr.

Norman Kerr's father, Alexander, was a merchant and ship owner who lived at Florentine Bank House, Hillhead.

Norman Kerr is reported to have travelled in Canada and the United States in this time and to have visited Portland in 1864.

Norman Kerr was then in practice in Markyate, Hertfordshire, being appointed Markyate Medical Officer in 1871, until he resigned in 1875.

Norman Kerr took part in a local meeting in 1872 by the United Kingdom Alliance supporting Sir Wilfred Lawson's Permissive Prohibitory Bill.

Norman Kerr was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1873 with an interest in botany.

In 1881 the outbreak of Typhus prompted Dr Norman Kerr to write a letter to the Vestry of St Marylebone.

Norman Kerr's other health precaution was a good square meal before going where infectious disease existed.

Dr Norman Kerr, who occupied the chair, said that to escape an attack of the recent fashionable complaint of the neighbourhood he had been ordered away at an hour's notice, and it was not till he got to France that the breezes of the English Channel had blown away all the threatening and suspicious symptoms.

Norman Kerr was thankful to find that during his absence the Vestry of Marylebone had resolved to institute a searching inquiry into the sanitary state of the parish and he had great hope that such measures would be adopted as would prevent any alarming epidemics for the future, and thus bring back to the neighbourhood the people and the trade that had been of late kept away by fear of contagion.

Norman Kerr did not think there was any risk now, and he was satisfied they night all enjoy the excellent entertainment of their good friends from Kilburn without any alloy of doubt or timidity.

Norman Kerr went on to be one of the founders in 1892 of the Church Sanitary Association with the aims of ensuring to everyone pure air, pure water, a wholesome dwelling, and surroundings safeguarded from preventable diseases.

Norman Kerr promoted the temperance movement as a speaker and through his writings.

Norman Kerr was a supporter of the Society for Promoting Legislation for the Control and Cure of Habitual Drunkards, which had been founded in 1876, and in 1877 read a paper on the treatment of habitual drunkards in the Psychological Section of a general meeting of the British Medical Association at Manchester.

Norman Kerr promoted the use of Coffee Taverns and Coffee Music Halls as a temperance alternative and was a director of the Coffee Taverns Company and the Coffee Music Halls Company.

Norman Kerr presided at the Colonial and International Congress on Inebriety held at Westminster Town Hall.

Norman Kerr was corresponding secretary of the American Association for the cure of Inebriates, and corresponding member of the Medical Legislation Society, New York.

Norman Kerr went on to edit and later supervise the Proceedings of the Society until his death.

Norman Kerr was interviewed in 1896 by the Daily Mail on his views on the proposed legislation:.

For some time Dr Norman Kerr has been working a home Rickmansworth on these lines with most satisfactory results, and it was with some misgivings that I asked if he preferred detention in Government homes or in voluntary institutions with State aid.

Norman Kerr's sensations are most terrible and agonising; he feels fearfully depressed and horribly uneasy, and has an almost unconquerable craving for a fresh dose of the drug.

Norman Kerr was vice-president of the International Congress of Medical jurisprudence.

Norman Kerr was a speaker at the After-Care Association, set up in 1879 to facilitate the readmission of convalescents from lunatic asylums into social life.

Norman Kerr was an advocate of vegetarianism, at one time entertaining 100 persons from the Marylebone Vestry to a vegetarian meal in the Walmer Castle Coffee Tavern, Marylebone Road, and on another occasion members of the medical profession.

Norman Kerr provided a "Penny Supper" consisting of a vegetable stew for about 250 poor people living about Lisson Grove at the Perseverance Temperance Hall, to show "inexpensive and wholesome" food.

Norman Kerr promoted vegetarianism in his practice and had been a vegetarian since being a medical student.

Norman Kerr supported the admission of women practitioners to the British Medical Association in 1878 when a motion was proposed to exclude them following the election of Mrs Garrett Anderson and Mrs Dr Hoggan.

Norman Kerr died of influenza at Wellington Square, Hastings, England on 30 May 1899 and is buried in the Paddington old cemetery.