Adewale Doherty (?1894-1935)
Adewale Doherty [1921-UCD-022] was from Lagos, on the coast of west Africa (now: Nigeria). His surname may indicate that he had a European father – or that he had adopted (or been given) a European surname (for instance, at a missionary school). He was presumably educated in Lagos, but by 1920, he was in Edinburgh beginning to study medicine. In 1921, he matriculated at University College Dundee with the aim of taking the MB.ChB. qualification. He gave his date of birth as 7th August 1894 (which would make him about 27 years old), and said that he had had 9 years of secondary schooling. From Whitsun 1922, he attended science and medicine classes for about four years, until, for reasons currently unknown, he abandoned his degree intentions at the University of St Andrews, and moved to Surgeons’ Hall, Edinburgh. In October 1926, he tried, but failed, to get a refund on his class fees.
In 1934, he was still living in Edinburgh when he formally changed his name from ‘Adewale Doherty’ to ‘Adedeji Adewale’. In September 1935, Adedeje Adewale Doherty is recorded as having died in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary: he was said to be 48 years old, rather than the 41 years that would fit with an 1894 birthdate, but since he was described as ‘an Edinburgh Physician’, it is surely the same person.
This summary was drafted in May 2026 by Libby Mullen, then a second-year student of Modern History.