Suggested character; is he okay?
Name: John Stephenson
Age, birthplace & Nationality: 35, born in Whitstable, Kent; English (with some Scottish ancestry on his mother’s side).
Gender: Male
Appearance:
He stands a wiry 6'2" and generally looks more friendly than he does here.
Occupation: Surgeon
Biography: Growing up in an affluent family, as the only son (one sister, Elizabeth, three years his junior) John was pushed to excel in his studies by his parents, particularly his ambitious mother, and went into medicine, training at the Royal College of Surgeons in London. Not the most academically gifted, perhaps, he was stubborn and preserved where those more gifted lost interest and finally graduated as a surgeon in 1878; he currently works as a surgeon at St Bartholomew's Hospital (usually called St Barts). He is well-thought of by his colleagues and mixes with the higher echelons of society, though more with the intellectuals and
nouveaux riches rather than any of the old money nobility.
He has been helping out part-time at one of the poor hospitals in the East End for the last eighteen months, mostly stitching up injuries from fights – an all too common sight, sadly. He keeps this a secret because he prefers to present a fairly cynical, faintly amused exterior to the world, and partly because if he mentioned to his friends that he was visiting the area they’d assume he was going for the squalid pleasures of alcohol and prostitutes (which a gentleman shouldn't mention in any case).
He’s attracted to one of the nurses at the poor hospital, but is hesitant to try courting her properly as he’s uncomfortably aware of the social gulf between them. He’s trying to pluck up the courage to go for it, and be damned to what society may think.
Misc. information relevant to plot: He’s known by sight by many of the locals who have been patched up by him at some time or other, and is usually greeted with a nod, or referred to as ‘Doc’ (in spite of the fact that as a surgeon his title is in fact Mister).
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