Lieutenant Colonel T. C. D. Bedell
156th (Leeds and Grenville) Battalion

Well the old 156th Battalion has been broken up having suffered the fate of other battalions… We have some doctor now and all of the new ones from the 156th were given a strict medical examination. Eighty, including myself, were turned down out of less than three hundred. He didn’t examine my eyes but that ‘bum’ toe of mine got me. I did not cry when he told me that I would get a hospital job but I told him “that was what I enlisted for.” He told some of the boys that if he had the doctor here who passed us he would ‘string him up and shoot him.’

(Pte. John Ford to Mrs. Ford [Mother], 25 Nov 1916)

Born on 20 April 1874 in Hillier, Ontario, Thomas Casey Dorland Bedell was a physician in Merrickville and commanding officer of the 56th Regiment. In August 1914, Bedell gave up a lucrative medical practice when he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He embarked for England in October 1914 attached to the 2nd Battalion. He proceeded to France with the 15th Battalion in March 1915.

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