Why Argentina remembers an unsung Sussex hero ...

Amazingly, the W Pringle Morgan Institute is named after a Seaford doctor. Morgan is one of the unsung heroes of Sussex and apart from a brass plaque in the north aisle of the parish church he has no memorial.

William Pringle Morgan was born in 1861 at Rostrevor, near Newry, in County Down, Northern Ireland. His father was a vicar who ensured that his son received a classical education. He studied at Dublin University and qualified as a doctor at a hospital in the same city. Pringle Morgan probably spent some time as a surgeon in the Royal Navy before he came to Seaford aged 25. In the latter part of the 19th century Seaford was served by just one doctor, Dr Tuck, who lived in Hurdis House in Broad Street. When Dr Tuck died in 1886, Pringle Morgan took over the practice and moved into the house.

He was apparently a busy man; he was a medical officer not only for Seaford but also Eastbourne Union Poor House and was the visiting physician for the Surrey Convalescent Hospital in town. He obviously loved the town and in 1893 published a paper in the London Medical Recorder promulgating Seaford as a healthy seaside resort.

The doctor worked from Hurdis House and provided a medical service, not only to the people of Seaford but also to its many schools, which paid the surgery a fixed annual fee for treating their pupils. It was one of these children, a 12-year-old boy called Percy, who fascinated Morgan. The young lad was highly intelligent and good at mathematics and sport, but his only failing was his inability to read. His headmaster thought him to be the brightest boy in the school but he continually wrote his name 'Precy' and did not notice the spelling mistake even when it was pointed out to him. He could speak clearly but when asked to write 'carefully winding the string round the peg' wrote 'Calfuly winder the strung rond the pag'.

He studied this case carefully for two years and came to the conclusion that it was a genetic disorder in processing vision rather than a problem with intelligence. He wrote up his findings which were published by the British Medical Journal on November 7, 1896 under the title Congenital Word Blindness. The good Seaford doctor was the first person to diagnose dyslexia.

As the population of Seaford grew, it became necessary to appoint a second doctor to the practice and in 1898 he was joined by Doctor Charles Gervis.

Pringle Morgan married a Seaford girl, Ethel Eastwood, and in 1899 they moved to a newly built house which Morgan named after his birthplace, Rostevor. This is now the site of the former Caffyns garage. This was not his only connection with Ireland as he remained a member of the Dublin University Biological Association. Dr Pringle Morgan was also one of the founder members of Seaford Golf Club which was formed in 1887 and, although keen, his name does not appear on any of the lists of competition winners for the club.

At the outset of the Great War, Dr Pringle Morgan saw military service in Malta where he served between 1914 and 1916 when he returned to Seaford. Dr Gervis was then called up and Pringle Morgan had to 'hold the fort' until he returned in 1919. Just before Pringle Morgan retired in 1927 he sold Rostrevor and moved to Upper Belgrave Road. He died aged 74 in 1934 after serving more than 40 years as a GP in the town.

The name Doctor William Pringle Morgan is not recognised by many people in Seaford but his name is synonymous worldwide with the discovery of dyslexia '“ even as far away as Buenos Aires!

KEVIN GORDON