Place Name
Originally called New Richmond Place, when it was laid out in 1838, its name was changed by Richmond Council in July 1898 to honour the recently deceased Dr Thomas Duncan (1831 – August 26, 1894) a local physician and director of the Richmond Gas Company, who lived at the Cedars (previously Lumley Lodge). According to the British Medical Journal of the time, Dr Duncan qualified as a doctor in 1854 in Aberdeen after which he came to live in Richmond: “In the course of time he succeeded in building up a large practice. Among his patients he numbered the late Duchess of Cambridge, the Duke and Duchess of Teck, and the Comte and Comtesse de Paris. He took little part in public affairs, preferring to devote himself to the work of his profession. He was for some time an honorary consulting surgeon at the Richmond Hospital.” He left a widow, three sons, and two daughters.
