On the 13th October 1845 The Times reported that Assistant Surgeon Sidney Bernard was promoted to the rank of Surgeon, the report also confirmed his appointment on the Eclair. The report also stated: This brave officer, who nobly volunteered his services at Madeira, did not live to enjoy his promotion; he died of the fever on Thursday morning 9th October 1845. Three days after this report the Times then reported that Bernard had volunteered to attend the sick in Madeira after the Eclair’s own surgeon died of the fever whilst on their way from Africa. The report says: When a soldier or sailor receives his death-wound in the service of his country, he is deservedly lamented, and his memory is embalmed in the tears of his country; but the duties of civil life, though less obtrusive and more humble, are not on that account the less meritorious; nor is it too much to say, that he who dies a volunteer in the cause of humanity to stay the pestilence of which he is the victim, is not less an example of true gallantry than he who dies inflicting wounds he is himself to suffer in his country’s cause.
Bernard was not the only man on board the Eclair who received a promotion whilst attending the sick on the ship. Dr John Grant Stewart, Surgeon R.N., was promoted to Deputy-Inspector of Hospitals whilst aboard the fateful ship. Also Dr. William Rogers, the additional assistant-Surgeon of the ocean who was promoted to Surgeon of the Navy. Dr Coffey, late Assistant-Surgeon of the growler joined Bernard on the Eclair at the same time, he was to be promoted to Surgeon of the Navy after serving 3 years and once he had completed his examinations.
A report published on the 19th November 1845 states:
Not many weeks since the Eclair steamer anchored in Funchal-Roads.
The dread yellow flag drooped from her masthead. A strange and deadly sickness had swept off two-thirds of her officers and men. Her captain and both her surgeons had perished. The wan, worn survivors, sought relief from the inhabitants of Madeira.
The Governor of the island deemed it his painful duty to forbid any intercourse between the plague-ship and the shore. He sternly commanded them to weigh their anchor and depart.
The scanty crew of the steamer, already insufficient to carry on the duty of the vessel, were daily becoming scantier under the attacks of the fever. The equinox was at hand. In this pitiable plight, without medical aid, they were on the point of being compelled to put to sea, and cross the Bay of Biscay.
There chanced, however, to be at Madeira Sidney Bernard, an English surgeon. This man and seven seamen, volunteers from English merchantmen, came forward and offered their services in taking the Eclair home.
It is needless to waste words in praising their noble conduct – a more signal act of cool disinterested devotion is not on record.
The Eclair reached the Motherbank; the fever still raged between her decks. Many had died on the passage from Madeira; the pilot who boarded her in the Channel died, and the heroic Sidney Bernard, having accomplished the humane task he had assigned himself, died also.
The Times reported on 10th January 1846 that the Eclair had been towed to Woolwich to be refitted for commission. The paper then went on to say “In connexion with this vessel we may state that, seeing in a weekly complimentary a statement to the effect that the property of the late lamented Sidney Bernard had fallen into the hands of a Sheerness Jew, we have made inquiry and find that such is the fact. That not only Mr. Bernard’s but the effects of almost all of the officers who fell victims to the pestilence on board the Eclair, were, on the paying-off of that ill-fated vessel, delivered into the charge of a general dealer in Mile-town, without an inventory, nay, without the ordinary security of lock and key!”
It carries on to state that none of the items passed on to the dealer will make it to its rightful owners, the relatives of those who died who are now writing to try and reclaim these items.
20th April 1846 saw a report stating that a memorial tablet had been placed in a chapel of a dockyard (Portsmouth?) in commemoration of Commander W.B. Estcourt, of the Eclair steam-ship. The paper also wishes that the admiralty does not forget the brave Sidney Bernard by erecting a suitable memorial to him.
