Frank Utten Purchas 1861—1909: Physician in Wales and descendant of slave owners

Frank Utten Purchas was born into a family which had a long history of benefitting from slavery. He was born in Jamaica where both his paternal and maternal lines owned slaves who were forced to work on their sugar plantations. Purchas left this life behind him, however, trained in Medicine in Edinburgh and became a respected and committed physician in Wales. He married into a prominent local family, and lived through a time that saw significant political, religious and medical changes. He contributed to the founding of an infirmary that exists to this day although he himself did not live to see its opening.