America and an accident

Gray had sailed to the New York with many introductions and friends in residence and was at once accepted into local artistic circles. Amongst people he met was Isadora Duncan who was at the height of her fame and whom he had met earlier in London. He enjoyed himself so much and having obtained future commissions, he returned the following year in the Winter. One job he had was to make a drawing of the the wife of the President of the United States, Helen Taft. He returned to England on the Baltic the largest ship of White Star Line until the Titanic. He had a stupid accident just before reaching Liverpool and seriously damaged one of his knees. He managed to get to his home in Chelsea in considerable pain and the Hammersleys came to his rescue and sent an ambulance and a nurse to bring him to their Hampstead home.

He was finally diagnosed as having a ‘tubercle’. He was fitted with a splint that enabled him to stand without pressure on the knee joint, and he wore it for three years.

Gray’s Australian Doctor friend Page was working at St. Mary’s Hospital Paddington under Sir Almroth Wright, and Page suggested he should be seen by Alexander Fleming who was working with Wright on the treatment of ‘tubercle’ by injections. Fleming treated him until he was well and they became firm friends. Fleming went on to discover Penicillin and a blue plaque on the house in Chelsea that was Gray’s family home in Danvers Street marks where Fleming lived in later years when it was converted by the family into flats.

Throughout this period of illness Mrs Hammersley continued to look after Gray driving him to the hospital for his injections, and he spent many hours painting in the Hammersley’s Hampstead Garden. Fleming continued to treat him and at one moment Gray begged Fleming to amputate his leg to end the constant pain. ‘Stick it out’ Fleming advised.

The cartoon of Fleming, drawn by Gray in 1911, refers to Fleming’s role in the London Scottish Regiment and his use of ‘Compound 606’ or salvarsan to treat syphilis. The cartoon is in the Alexander Fleming Museum in London and is reproduced here with the Museum’s permission. The caption, in Gray’s handwriting, reads ‘Pivate 606. To Sir Almroth Wright and Co.’

Fleming finally gave Gray the all clear and his splint was removed after three and a half years.

Gray with walking sticks when he was wearing his splint