California Biographies Source: History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California by: C M Gidney - Santa Barbara. Benjamin Brooks - San Luis Obispo. Edwin M Sheridan - Ventura Volumes II - Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL., 1917 This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm J. C. BAINBRIDGE, M. D. Since 1899 Doctor Bainbridge has had his home and his professional practice at Santa Barbara. His attainments and long experience give him unquestioned rank among the foremost physicians and surgeons in California. For a number of years he was a specialist in diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat before coming to Santa Barbara, but the bulk of his practice is now as a general physician and surgeon. Doctor Bainbridge is now and has been for the last ten years serving as county physician of Santa Barbara County. He is also surgeon for the Native Sons and the Native Daughters of the Golden West, and examining physician for the Woodmen of the World and the Knights of Pythias. He is also medical surgeon for the following insurance companies : Mutual Life, New York Mutual, Pacific Mutual, State Life of Indiana and Occidental Life of California and was a member of the state board of medical examiners from 1904 to 1907. Doctor Bainbridge is well known to the profession as a contributor to medical and surgical literature. Some of his articles that have appeared in American medical journals have been extensively copied and editorially commented upon by the journals of Vienna and Berlin. He is a keen student, has an original mind and has advanced a number of theories and adaptations and modifications of accepted practice which have attracted much attention. For years Doctor Bainbridge was secretary of the Eclectic Medical Society of California and is a member of the San Francisco Society of Physicians and Surgeons, and also of the local medical organizations at Santa Barbara. He was the first physician in Santa Barbara to introduce an X-Ray machine into his office, and he has also acquired an extensive equipment required for his special lines of work. From 1894 until 1899 Doctor Bainbridge has had charge of the eye and ear clinics in the California Medical College. He gave up that position and also his private practice in San Francisco and came to Santa Barbara to find a climate more suitable to his wife. Doctor Bainbridge was born near St. Louis, Missouri, November 23, 1862, but has spent the greater part of his life in California. His family came to this state when he was about twelve years of age. In the mean- time he had attended public school in Lincoln County, Missouri, and in 1878 he graduated from the high school at Stockton, California. After completing a course in the Stockton Business College and Normal School he remained with that institution as professor of mathematics, and he also began his medical studies during that time under his father. Doctor Bainbridge's father was a very prominent early physician of California, and he comes of very prominent ancestry. From England, the original seat of the family, members of the name settled in Virginia. The great-grandfather of Doctor Bainbridge was born in Virginia, and he served as a private soldier in the Revolution and as a major in the War of 1812. This Revolutionary soldier was a brother of Commodore William Bainbridge, whose exploits as one of the daring naval commanders in the early years of our national history have become a theme for nearly every historical text book on the history of the United States. Doctor Bainbridge's grandfather, E. B. Bainbridge, was born near Lexington, Kentucky, in 1804, afterward removed to Wisconsin, from there to St. Louis, Missouri, and spent his last years near Lexington, Kentucky. Dr. J. A. Bainbridge, father of the Santa Barbara physician, was born in Wisconsin, graduated in 1860 from the Cincinnati Eclectic Medical College, practiced at Troy, Missouri, and then at St. Louis, and in 1874 came to Stockton, California. He finally combined his practice as 'a physician and the management of a large grain ranch at Lathrop, California. Dr. J. A. Bainbridge married Mary E. Herold, who was born in Missouri and died in California in 1885. Her father, Thomas Herold. a native of Wuertemberg, Germany, was graduated in medicine from the University of Wuertemberg, and after coming to this country practiced at New Orleans, but finally gave up his profession to become a business man. For many years he was a prominent tobacco manufacturer, and in partnership with his sons started the tobacco factory later owned by Drummond & Co. John Drummond, whose name figured so prominently in the American tobacco industry, was at one time employed by W. G. Herold & Co. Mr. Herold owned large amounts of land in the Mississippi Valley and at one time operated a line of boats on the Mississippi River. He died on one of his farms in Lincoln County, Missouri. Doctor Bainbridge was third in a family of five sons and five daughters, eight of whom reached mature years. Three of the daughters married and the other sons are : E. D. Bainbridge, a California rancher ; B. M. Bainbridge, a California school man, and C. E., who graduated from the California Medical College and the New York Polyclinic and practiced at Sacramento, but is now deceased. In 1883 Dr. J. C. Bainbridge entered the California Medical College at San Francisco, where he was graduated M. D. in 1886. In his earlier years he suffered a great deal from ill health, and he spent much time in extensive and world-wide travel as a means of recuperation. After leaving medical college, instead of beginning active practice he was the principal of a school in Sacramento three years. From 1889 to 1891 he traveled, visiting England, Scotland and other European countries ; also some of the cities of South America, and following that trip he went to Australia and returned to the United States by way of Yokohama, and for six months lived in British Columbia. From 1891 until January, 1894, Doctor Bainbridge was superintendent of instruction at Heald's Business College in Sap Francisco. He resigned that position to take his place as an instructor and also as a student in the California Medical College, and later for almost a year pursued special courses in eye, ear, nose and throat at the New York Polyclinic. In San Francisco Doctor Bainbridge married Miss Dora A. Waters. She was born in California, and her father, Abraham Waters, was a native of England and came with his parents to the United States, settling at Richmond, Illinois. From there in early manhood he came west to California, and for a number of years was employed as a mineral expert. His death came as the result of drowning at the age of forty-seven. Abraham Waters was married in California to Susan Pedler, a native of Halifax, Nova Scotia. After the death of her husband she made her home in San Francisco. Three children were born to Doctor and Mrs. Bainbridge, two sons who are deceased and a daughter, Gertrude Alethe, who was born in Santa Barbara thirteen years ago. Mrs. Bainbridge is a member of the Native Daughters of the Golden West, and both she and her husband are prominent members of the Santa Barbara Episcopal Church. Doctor Bainbridge is a prominent democrat and takes an active part in the affairs of his party, being chairman of the county central committee, and he has served in that position for the past fifteen years.