No biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
John Hull Grundy was born in Southall in 1907. He studied art at King's College London and the Chelsea School of Art before working for the Royal College of Art. The start of World War Two drew him into the world of medicine, and he developed his drawing of the body with anatomical studies made for the Royal College of Surgeons and the Orpington War Hospital. In 1942, he began as lecturer in Entomology at the Royal Army Medical College in London, a post he kept until his retirement in 1967. On his retirement, he was named a member of the British Empire (MBE). His artwork on insects is much more widely known than his work on human anatomy.
John Croft was born in Pettinghoe, near Newhaven, in Sussex, in 1833. He was educated at the Hackney Church of England School. He was apprentice to Thomas Evans, of Burwash, in Sussex, and entered St Thomas's Hospital in 1850, where he served as House Surgeon. He acted as Surgeon to the Dreadnought Seamen's Hospital Ship from 1855-1860, and then returned to St Thomas's Hospital to become Demonstrator of Anatomy and Surgical Registrar. He was appointed Resident Assistant Surgeon in 1863, and Assistant Surgeon, and then Surgeon in 1871. He was elected Consulting Surgeon in 1891. He was also Surgeon to the Surrey Dispensary, to the National Truss Society, to the Magdalen hospital at Streatharn, and to the National Provident Assurance Society. He was elected a member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1882 and resigned in 1890, after serving as Vice-President in 1889 and acting on the Court of Examiners from 1881-1886.
Juan N Restrepo and Julio M Escovar were both physicians from the Republic of Colombia, possibly working at the Hospital de Caridad de Honda. Further biographical information on Restrepo and Escovar is not known.
Sir Hugh Mallinson Rigby was born in Dublin in 1870. He was educated at Bray School, Co Wicklow; at Dulwich College; and at University College London. He trained in Medicine at the London Hospital, where he remained throughout his career. He won the gold medal at the BS examination of 1897. He served as house surgeon, house physician, and surgical registrar. In the Medical College he was demonstrator of anatomy, from 1901-1903, and the first tutor in elementary clinical surgery, from 1903-1908. He was elected assistant surgeon in 1902, and became surgeon; retiring in 1927. He was appointed consulting surgeon and kept his large private practice. He was also surgeon to the City of London Maternity Hospital; to the East Ham Hospital; to the cottage hospitals at Beckenham and Cheshunt; and consulting surgeon to the Poplar Accident Hospital. During World War One he was a consulting surgeon to the British Expeditionary Force in France, and to the London district with the temporary rank of colonel, AMS. He was promoted temporary lieutenant-colonel, RAMC (T), and brevet major, both in 1917. He served as surgeon in ordinary to Queen Alexandra, who died in 1925; and he was surgeon in ordinary to the Prince of Wales from 1923 until his accession to the throne as King Edward VIII in 1936. He was Serjeant Surgeon to King George V, from 1928-1932, and Honorary Surgeon to His Majesty, from 1932-1936. When the King was taken seriously ill with empyema in 1928, Rigby performed the operation which saved his life. He had been made a KCVO in 1917, and was created a Baronet, of Long Durford, Rogate, Sussex, in 1929. He died in 1944.
Hermann Boerhaave was born at Voorhout, near Leiden, in 1668. His father had wanted him to become a clergyman, and so it was not until he had studied theology that he began to study medicine. In 1690 he took up the study of medicine, chemistry and botany, supporting himself by teaching mathematics. He began to be more interested in medicine, with an ambition to be 'a doctor of both body and soul'. He began to read every available medical work, but hardly ever attended lectures in medicine, with the exception of a few in anatomy. He obtained a degree in medicine at the provincial university in Harderwijk, in 1693. He became a general practitioner in Leiden in 1793, where he spent his entire professional life. He was appointed lecturer of theoretical medicine at the University of Leiden in 1701. He was appointed Professor of Medicine and Botany in 1709; second Professor of Practical Medicine in 1714 (he became first Professor in 1720); and Professor of Chemistry in 1718. For the next ten years he simultaneously held three of the five chairs that constituted the whole of Leiden's Faculty of Medicine. His influence spread throughout Europe, and as far as China. His works were also translated into arabic. He was a Hippocratist who put the care of the patients above all considerations of theory; he strived to reorder the medical sciences on a sound basis of natural science. He was a member of the Medical College, a corresponding member of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris, and he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1730. He was also chairman of the Surgeon's Guild at Leiden from 1714-1738. He died in 1738.
William Alexander Greenhill was born in 1814. He was educated at Edmonton and Rugby, and then matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford in 1832. He studied medicine at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, and went to Paris to study the practice in hospitals. He graduated MB in 1839 and MD in 1840. He was appointed physician to the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1839 and held this position until 1851. He began to practice in Oxford. He worked on sanitary matters when there was an outbreak of cholera in Oxford in 1849. He was a parishioner and churchwarden of St Mary's, Oxford, and corresponded with the vicar, John Henry Newman. Also, he was a member of Dr Pusey's theological society. Whilst living in Oxford he studied the Greek and Arabic Medical writers, and he produced translations of texts. He relocated to Hastings in 1851. He was a physician for the local infirmary and worked for various public charities. He produced many publications on public health and sanitary conditions in the area. He died on 1894.
James Murie obtained his M D at Glasgow University in 1857. He became Medical Officer in the expedition to support Speke and Grant in 1862, and visited the source of the Nile at Lake Victoria, Nyanza. He was lecturer in anatomy at the Middlesex Hospital. He retired to Leigh-on-Sea, where he became interested in Fisheries.
David Henry Monckton was born in 1829. He studied at King's College Hospital, where he became an Associate. From 1850-1852 he became a Student of Human and Comparative Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons, and acted as Hunterian Professor. He practised at Rugeley, Staffordshire. He was Physician to the Staffordshire General Infirmary, Medical Officer of Health to the Lichfield Rural District, and Surgeon to the Rugeley Convalescent Home, District Hospital, Provident Dispensary and Sister Dora Convalescent Hospital. Monckton carried out a post-mortem examination on Mr Cook, one of the victims of William Palmer MRCS, and gave evidence at the trial in 1856. This was reported in the Illustrated Times. He moved to Maidstone, Kent, and became Surgeon Lieutenant-Colonel commanding the Maidstone County Volunteer Medical Staff Corps. He died in 1896.
John Henry Sylvester was born in 1830. He was a Student of Anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons from 1852-1853. He became the Deputy Surgeon General in India serving the Bombay Medical Service and participating in the Persian Campaign, the Indian Mutiny, and the Ambela Campain. He died in 1903.
Alban Henry Griffith Doran was born in Pembroke Square, Kensington, in 1849. He was educated in Barnes, and entered St Bartholomew's Hospital at 18, where he won many prizes. He served as House Surgeon to Luther Holden, as House Physician, and as Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy. He became Assistant in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1878, under Sir William Flower, who he helped with his work as a craniometrist. He became interested in the middle ear in mammals, exploring the mammalian skulls in the Museum and finding a great number of auditory ossicula, which he mounted on glass. The ossicula auditus were exhibited at a meeting of the Royal Society, and a little later a monograph on the subject was published, with engravings by C Berjeau, in the Transactions of the Linnean Society. Doran became Pathological Assistant at the College of Surgeons, and contributed to the compilation of a catalogue of the pathological specimens in the Museum. He became an Assistant Surgeon to the Samaritan Free Hospital for Women in 1877, and worked there for over 30 years. He retired in 1909 returned as a volunteer officer to the Hunterian Museum, where he contributed to re-organising the obstetrical and gynaecological collections. He compiled a descriptive catalogue of the obstetrical and other instruments in the Museum, including the appliances and instruments used by Lord Lister. He died in 1927.
Joseph Black originally studied arts at the University of Glasgow. He switched to study chemistry under the tutelage of William Cullen, and became his assistant. In 1751 Black returned to Edinburgh to complete his medical training, and in 1754 he presented to the faculty his thesis which dealt with the subject of acidity of the stomach. In his thesis he upturned previous notions, by introducing quantitative as well as qualitative analysis into chemistry, and demonstrated the presence of something he called 'fixed air', a gas distinct from air, and which French chemists later called 'carbonic acid gas'. In 1755 Black succeeded Cullen as Professor of Medicine at the University of Glasgow, where he lectured on chemistry and medicine. During this period Black made a further contribution to the advancement of science, through the formulation of the doctrine of latent heat, calorimetry, the first accurate method of measuring heat, and the device itself, the calorimeter. This discovery was backed up by research into the laws of boiling and evaporation, and it was these studies in particular which interested Joseph Black's friend and colleague James Watt, thus laying the foundations for the practical application of steam power. In 1766 Black accepted the chair of chemistry and medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He took a keen interest in industrial developments, such as bleaching, brewing, glassworks, iron-making and furnace construction. In 1767 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and in 1788 became the President of the College.
'Dr Pearson', is probably George Pearson (1751-1828). George Pearson was born in 1751 at Rotherham in Yorkshire. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, Leiden and London, obtaining his doctorate of medicine at Edinburgh in 1774. Pearson was admitted a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1784, and was elected as Physician to St George's Hospital in 1787. He lectured on chemistry, material medica and the practice of physic for a number of years. Dr Pearson died in 1828. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a frequent contributer to the 'Philosophical Transactions'.
The Western Friendly Medical Club was formed in 1862 for the purpose of 'establishing and maintaining a sociable and convivial intercourse amongst its' members.' The Club first met on 20 Oct 1862 and drew up its constitution: it was to include twelve members, and would meet on the 1st and 3rd Monday evenings of the month from Oct to Apr. The 5th resolution states: 'That Whist be played from eight until eleven o'clock, after which no rubber is to be commenced under a penalty of five shillings'. The 9th resolution states: 'That tea and coffee be handed round at 8 o'clock, biscuits and wine at 9, and that the supper consist of Sandwiches, Oysters, Ham or Tongue, Salad - with or without a Lobster, Wine and Cup. For any other dishes a fine of 5s.' The club continued to meet for nearly a century, before winding up their activities and donating their possessions to the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1952.
No biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
Harold Burrows was born in India in 1875, the son of Surgeon-Major E P Burrows of the Bombay Army. Harold Burrows was educated at Marlborough and St Bartholomew's Hospital. After qualifying in 1899 he became a prosector at the Royal College of Surgeons and was also an assistant editor of The Hospital. His first surgical appointment was in 1903 at the Bolingbroke Hospital, Wandsworth, and in 1905 he became senior assistant surgeon to the Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich. In 1907 he joined the staff of the Royal Portsmouth Hospital. As a Territorial he was mobilised on the outbreak of the 1914-1918 war, served in France with the 20th General Hospital and later became consultant surgeon to the First Army and to the Army of the Rhine, with the rank of Colonel. He was twice mentioned in dispatches and created CBE in 1919. After the war he returned to Portsmouth, where he organised the collection of funds for providing orthopaedic clinics. In 1920 he was awarded the Jacksonian Prize of the Royal College of Surgeons for his essay, The results and treatment of gun shot injuries of the blood vessels. A regular worker in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons, Burrows was also a Hunterian Professor in 1922, 1933, and 1935. He published two very successful books Pitfalls of Surgery, and Surgical Instruments and Appliances. He became an experimental biologist at the research laboratories of the Royal Cancer Hospital (now the Chester Beatty Research Institute), in 1925. At the age of 63 he was awarded a PhD from London University. His major work The Biological Action of Sex Hormones was published in 1944 when Burrows was 69. He died in 1955.
The register of midwifery cases was possibly compiled by Thomas Ballard, an obstetrician practising in Southwick Place, Hyde Park, London. Ballard became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1843, and licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in 1844. He studied at St Georges Hosptial, and obtained his doctorate from St Andrews University in 1862. Ballard was a member of the Harveian Society, a fellow of the Royal Medical Chirurgical and Obstetrical Society, and a member of the Pathological Society.
Sir Albert James Walton was born in 1881. He was educated at Framlingham College and the London Hospital, where he gained many scholarships and prizes, qualifying in 1905. In the BSc examination in 1906, he obtained honours in anatomy and morphology, and on taking the MB, BS degrees he secured honours in midwifery, gynaecology and pathology. At the London Hospital he held appointments as emergency officer, house physician, receiving room officer, resident anaesthetist, house surgeon, assistant director of the Institute of Pathology, surgical registrar and demonstrator of anatomy, before being elected to the honorary staff in 1913. Other hospitals to which he was attached were the Poplar Hospital for Accidents; the Evelina Hospital for Children; the Seamen's Hospital, Greenwich; and the Victoria Hospital, Kingston. During the World War One he served as Captain RAMC(T) attached to the 2nd London General Hospital and also at the Endsleigh Hospital for Officers, the Palace Green Hospital for Officers and the Empire Hospital for Diseases of the Brain and Spinal Cord. In World War Two he was a temporary Brigadier attached to the Army Medical Service. At the College he was a Hunterian Professor, 1919; a member of Council, 1931-1947; and Vice-President, 1939-1941. He was an extra surgeon to the Queen, having been surgeon to King George V, King George VI and to the Royal Household. An honorary member of the Academie de Chirurgie of Paris, he was a past President of the Association of Surgeons, the Medical Society of London, and the surgical section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was awarded the diploma with distinction of the Gemmological Association of which he became President, and he was chairman of the National Association of Goldsmiths. These two bodies established at their headquarters in the city the Sir James Walton Memorial Library, containing models of minerals made by Sir James himself. He was the first medical man to appreciate the importance of the atomic structure of minerals in the causation of chest diseases. He died in 1955.
John Hunter was born in East Kilbride, in 1728. He travelled to London to join his elder brother William Hunter (1718-1783) in 1748. John assisted William by carrying out dissections and preparing specimens. John began attending lectures by leading surgeons in 1749, and by 1754 John was a surgeon-pupil at St George's Hospital, London. Soon afterwards he began to take some of William Hunter's lectures. John Hunter carried out research into a variety of areas, many of which were published later in his life. John Hunter was commissioned as army surgeon to the British Army in 1761. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1767. He became a member of the Company of Surgeons in 1768. John Hunter married Anne Home in 1771, with whom he had two children, John Banks Hunter and Agnes Hunter (two further children died in infancy). John Hunter built up his private practice and continued to give lectures in surgery. He remained an active teacher and researcher until his death in 1793. For a further biographical information see MS0189.
William Hunter was also born in East Kilbride in 1718. He studied medicine at Edinburgh. By 1746 had embarked on a successful private career in London as a midwife and physician and a private lecturer in surgery and anatomy. He died in 1783.
Henry Nathaniel Rumsey was a surgeon practising at Chesham, Buckinghamshire. Rumsey had taken shorthand notes of John Hunter's lectures in 1786-1787, which were printed by James F Palmer in his edition of Hunter's works. They were admired for their completeness, including examples and illustrations.
W Waller was a surgeon at Gosport, Hampshire, reported to be a pupil of John Hunter together with his brother, also W Waller, a surgeon at Portsmouth. The name Waller appears in the Hampshire Directory for 1784 under Surgeons in Gosport.
Charles Wilkinson was a surgeon practicing at Pulteney Street, Bath, in c1846. He was a member of the Company of Surgeons in 1791, and last appeared in the Medical Directory in 1849.
No biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
John Abernethy was born in Coleman Street, London, in 1764. He was educated at Wolverhampton Grammar school, and at the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to Charles Blicke, surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. Abernethy remained at Bart's for the rest of his career, being appointed assistant surgeon in 1787, and promted to full surgeon in 1815. During the 1790s Abernethy published several papers on a variety of anatomical topics. On the strength of these contributions he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1796. Between 1814 and 1817 he served as Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons. Abernethy also offered private lectures in anatomy in a house in Bartholomew Close, near to the hospital. The governors of Bart's then built a lecture theatre within the hospital to accommodate his classes. In 1824 Thomas Wakley, editor of the newly established journal The Lancet, published Abernethy's lectures without his permission. Abernethy sought an injunction but was unsuccessful, and remained resentful about the incident. Abernethy had himself attended the lectures of John Hunter, with whom he was also personally acquainted, and after Hunter's death he professed himself to be the spokesman for Hunter's physiological and pathological views. He died in 1831.
John Abernethy was born in Coleman Street, London, in 1764. He was educated at Wolverhampton Grammar school, and at the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to Charles Blicke, surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. Abernethy remained at Bart's for the rest of his career, being appointed assistant surgeon in 1787, and promted to full surgeon in 1815. During the 1790s Abernethy published several papers on a variety of anatomical topics. On the strength of these contributions he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1796. Between 1814 and 1817 he served as Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons. Abernethy also offered private lectures in anatomy in a house in Bartholomew Close, near to the hospital. The governors of Bart's then built a lecture theatre within the hospital to accommodate his classes. In 1824 Thomas Wakley, editor of the newly established journal The Lancet, published Abernethy's lectures without his permission. Abernethy sought an injunction but was unsuccessful, and remained resentful about the incident. Abernethy had himself attended the lectures of John Hunter, with whom he was also personally acquainted, and after Hunter's death he professed himself to be the spokesman for Hunter's physiological and pathological views. He died in 1831.
Sir Everard Home was born in Hull, Yorkshire, in 1756. He was educated at Westminster School, and became a surgical pupil of his brother-in-law John Hunter (1728-1793), surgeon at St George's Hospital, London. Home qualified through the Company of Surgeons in 1778 and was appointed assistant surgeon in the new naval hospital at Plymouth. In 1779 he went to Jamaica as staff surgeon with the army, but on returning to England in 1784 he rejoined Hunter at St George's as assistant. He was elected FRS in 1787, and in the same year he became assistant surgeon at St George's Hospital. In 1790-1791 Home read lectures for Hunter and in the following year he succeeded Hunter as lecturer in anatomy. Home joined the army in Flanders in 1793, but returned just before Hunter's sudden death in 1793. He then became surgeon at St George's Hospital and was also joint executor of Hunter's will with Matthew Baillie, Hunter's nephew. In 1793-1794 they saw Hunter's important work, On the Blood, Inflammation and Gun-Shot Wounds, through the press and in 1794 Home approached Pitt's government to secure the purchase for the nation of Hunter's large collection of anatomical and pathological specimens. After protracted negotiations the collection was purchased for £15,000 in 1799 and presented to the College of Surgeons. In 1806 the collection was moved from Hunter's gallery in Castle Street to form the Hunterian Museum at the new site of the college in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Home was chief curator and William Clift, who had worked with Hunter since 1792, was retained as resident conservator. Clift also had charge of Hunter's numerous folios, drawings, and accounts of anatomical and pathological investigations, which were essential for a clear understanding of the collection. In the years following Hunter's death Home built up a large surgical practice and published more than one hundred papers of varying quality, some very good, mainly in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The society awarded him its Copley medal in 1807. He gave the Croonian lectures fifteen times between 1794 and 1826. As Hunter's brother-in-law and executor he had great influence at the Royal College of Surgeons where he was elected to the court of assistants in 1801, an examiner in 1809, master in 1813 and 1821, and its first president in 1822. Having, with Matthew Baillie, endowed the Hunterian oration, he was the first Hunterian orator in 1814, and again in 1822. He became Keeper and a trustee of the Hunterian Museum in 1817 and was Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the College from 1804 to 1813, and again in 1821. His Lectures on Comparative Anatomy were published in 1814 with a volume of plates from drawings by Clift. A further volume of lectures followed in 1823 accompanied by microscopical and anatomical drawings by Bauer and Clift. Two more volumes appeared in 1828. This work, although lacking in structure, is an important record of Hunter's investigations, especially the last two volumes. Home drew heavily on Hunter's work in the papers and books which he published after Hunter's death. Before the collection was presented to the Company of Surgeons in 1799 Home arranged for Clift to convey to his own house Hunter's folio volumes and fasciculi of manuscripts containing descriptions of the preparations and investigations connected with them. He promised to catalogue the collection, refusing help, but, despite repeated requests, only a synopsis appeared in 1818. B C Brodie says that Home was busily using Hunter's papers in preparing his own contributions for the Royal Society. Home himself later stated that he had published all of value in Hunter's papers and that his one hundred articles in Philosophical Transactions formed a catalogue raisonée of the Hunterian Museum. Home destroyed most of Hunter's papers in 1823. After his death in 1832, a parliamentary committee was set up to enquire into the details of this act of vandalism. Clift told this committee in 1834 that Home had used Hunter's papers extensively and had claimed that Hunter, when he was dying, had ordered him to destroy his papers. Yet Home, who was not present at Hunter's death, had kept the papers for thirty years. Clift also declared that he had often transcribed parts of Hunter's original work and drawings into papers which appeared under Home's name. Home produced a few of Hunter's papers which he had not destroyed and Clift had copied about half of the descriptions of preparations in the collection, consequently enough of Hunter's work survives to suggest that Home had often published Hunter's observations as his own. Although the full extent of Home's plagiarism cannot be determined, there is little doubt that it was considerable and this seriously damaged his reputation.
Charles Bell was born in Edinburgh, in 1774. He received his medical education from the University of Edinburgh between 1792-1799, attending courses on anatomy, botany, chemistry, and the practice of medicine and clinical lectures at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He also assisted his brother John, also a surgeon, teaching anatomy and surgery in the Edinburgh extramural school. Charles Bell had a talent for drawing and developed his skills as an artist during this time. While still a student in 1798, he published a System of Dissections, illustrated by his own drawings. He was elected a fellow of the College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1799, and practised at the Edinburgh Infirmary. He published The Anatomy of the Brain, Explained in a Series of Engravings, in 1802. He left Edinburgh for London in 1804. He married Marion Shaw in 1811 and used the money from the dowry to buy a share in the Hunterian School of Medicine, in Great Windmill Street. He was appointed surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital in 1814, and became a member of The Royal College of Surgeons of London. He lectured as Senior Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at The Royal College of Surgeons of London in 1824, and then became a member of Council. He was knighted in 1831. He was appointed Professor of Anatomy, Surgery and Physiology at the London University in 1827. When the University Medical School finally opened in 1828, Bell gave the inaugural speech. There were some difficulties in the new Medical School and in 1830, Bell left to help establish a medical school at the Middlesex Hospital where he conducted his clinical lectures. The school opened in 1835, and Bell was to teach surgery and anatomy. However, at this time, Bell was offered the post of Professor of Surgery at Edinburgh University, which he accepted, returning to Edinburgh in 1836. In 1840 he made a three month tour of Italy to view works of art for one of his publications. He died in 1842.
John Bell was born in Edinburgh, in 1763. Aged 17 he was apprenticed to Alexander Wood, the leading surgeon at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and attended the lectures of Joseph Black, William Cullen and Alexander Monro secundus. He was admitted freeman surgeon apothecary by the Royal College and Corporation of Surgeon Apothecaries of Edinburgh, in 1786. He began his own practice and also his own programme of lectures. He opened his own lecture theatre in Surgeon's Square, Edinburgh, in 1790. He published a series of textbooks on surgical anatomy and emphasised the practical experience of surgical techniques in training. He had a talent for drawing and produced his own illustrations for his The Anatomy of the Bones, Muscles and Joints (1793-1794) and Discourses on the Nature and Cure of Wounds (1793-1795). He died in Rome in 1825.
Thomas Appleby was a surgeon at Castleton in the early 19th century. Further biographical information is currently unavailable.
George Ramsey Rodd was a surgeon who resided in Hampstead. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1807-1827. No further biographical information is currently available.
Alexander Henry Bartlett was born in Ipswich in 1800. He became a student at Guy's and St Thomas's Hospitals, where he was dresser to Sir Astley Cooper in 1822-1823. After qualifying he settled in Ipswich, where he was first elected to the Dispensary. He was appointed Surgeon to the Gaol in 1825. He had an important share in the establishment of the East Suffolk Hospital, and headed the poll at the election of surgeons in 1836. He served on the active staff of the Hospital for forty years and then became Consulting Surgeon. He died in 1887.
Edmund Belfour was born in 1790. He became secretary to The Royal College of Surgeons of England at age 21, taking over from his father, Okey Belfour. Edmund Belfour held this post for fifty years, and died on in 1865 at his residence in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
William Clift was born in Cornwall in 1775, and was educated locally. He became an apprentice anatomical assistant to the celebrated surgeon John Hunter (1728-1793) in 1792. He was appointed conservator of the Hunterian Museum after Hunter's death. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1823, and was a member of the Society for Animal Chemistry. He died in 1849.
Sir Richard Owen was born in Lancaster in 1804. He was educated at Lancaster grammar school, the University of Edinburgh, and St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was a comparative anatomist, a palaeontologist, conservator of the Hunterian Museum, and superintendent of the Natural History collections of the British Museum. He died in 1892.
William Wadd was born in 1776 He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School from 1784, and was apprenticed to James Earle in 1797, becoming a surgeon's pupil at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was admitted a member of The Royal College of Surgeons in 1801. He practised and resided in Basinghall St, London. At The Royal College of Surgeons, Wadd was a member of the council in 1824, and he was appointed a member of the court of examiners in 1829. He was appointed one of the surgeons-extraordinary to the Prince Regent in 1817, and then surgeon-extraordinary to George IV in 1821. Wadd was a fellow of the Linnean Society and an associate of the Societe de Medecine of Paris. He died in 1829.
A new hospital was built in Tooting by the Metropolitan Asylums Board after a resurgence of Scarlet Fever in 1893. This was the 400 bed Fountain Fever Hospital, designed by Thomas W Aldwinckle, and built in nine weeks.
Most of the buildings were single-storey structures with timber frames, covered with boarding, felt and corrugated iron. On the inside, the walls were lined with boarding and asbestos on plaster. A porter's lodge stood at the west of the site at the entrance on Tooting Grove. It contained a gate office, waiting room, and lavatory, with discharging rooms and bathrooms to the rear. There were separate entrances at each side - the 'infected' one leading to the receiving wards, and the 'non-infected' one leading to the administration buildings and stores.
There were 8 ward blocks, arranged in two rows of 4, and all linked by a central covered way. Each block contained 24 beds, plus a scullery, attendant's bedroom and staff WC, linen room, and patients' bathroom. Two further isolation blocks were situated at the north-west edge of the site. The 'temporary' ward blocks were still in use in 1930. There was also accommodation for nursing staff, domestic staff and male servants, as well as workshops and a mortuary.
In 1911-1912, the hospital was redesignated as a mental hospital and became used for the accommodation of the lowest grade of severely subnormal children, becoming the Fountain Mental Hospital. In 1930, the administration of the hospital passed to the London County Council who retained it as a hospital for mentally defective children. From 1948 the hospital was known as the Fountain Hospital. It was demolished in 1963 and the site is now occupied by St George's Hospital.
Thomas Brushfield was a surgeon, and formerly the Senior Medical Officer at the Fountain Mental Hospital. This collection was compiled during his work there between 1914-1927, and is also known as the Brushfield Amentia Collection.
Charles Alexandre Lesueur was born in 1778, the son of a French naval officer. Aged 23, he sailed from his home at Le Havre, France, on an expedition to Australia and Tasmania. During the next 4 years, Lesueur and the naturalist François Péron collected over 100,000 zoological specimens representing 2,500 new species, and Lesueur made 1,500 drawings. Lesueur met William Maclure in 1815, and was persuaded to join him in Philadelphia where he lived until the end of 1825. Lesueur travelled on Maclure's 'Boatload of Knowledge' to Mount Vernon, Indiana, and then a few miles on to New Harmony. He remained there until 1837, when he returned to France. He was appointed curator of the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle du Havre in 1845, which was created to house his many drawings and paintings. He died in 1846.
Frederick Christian Lewis was born in London, in 1779. He was primarily a printmaker and engraver, and his prints were highly valued by his contemporaries. He became engraver of drawings to Princess Charlotte, Prince Leopold, George IV, William IV, and Queen Victoria. He also made tours in Europe producing various etchings. He died in Enfield, Middlesex, in 1856.
Biographical information regarding B A Vitry was unavailable at the time of compilation.
Sir Richard Owen was born in Lancaster, in 1804. He was educated at Lancaster Grammar School and then enlisted as a midshipman in the Royal Navy. He became interested in surgery He returned to Lancaster and became indentured to a local surgeon, in 1820. He entered the University of Edinburgh medical school, in 1824 and privately attended the lectures of Dr John Barclay. He moved to London and became apprentice to John Abernethy, surgeon, philosopher and President of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1825. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1826. He became Assistant Curator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in 1827, and commenced work cataloguing the collection. He set up a private practice in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He became lecturer on comparative anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital, in 1829. He met Georges Cuvier in 1830 and attended the 1831 debates between Cuvier and Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, in Paris. He worked in the dissecting rooms and public galleries of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in 1831. He published anatomical work on the cephalopod Nautilus, and started the Zoological Magazine, in 1833. He worked on the fossil vertebrates brought back by Darwin on the Beagle. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1834; Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, in 1836-1856; and gave his first series of Hunterian Lectures to the public, in 1837. He was awarded the Wollaston gold medal by the Geological Society, in 1838; helped found the Royal Microscopical Society, in 1839; and identified the extinct moa of New Zealand from a bone fragment, 1839. He refused a knighthood in 1842. He examined reptile-like fossil bones found in southern England which led him to identify "a distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles" he named Dinosauria, in 1842. He developed his concept of homology and of a common structural plan for all vertebrates or 'archetype'. He became Joint Conservator of the Hunterian Museum with William Clift, in 1842, and Conservator, in 1849. He was elected to 'The Club', founded by Dr Johnson, in 1845. He was a member of the government commission for inquiring into the health of London, in 1847, including Smithfield and other meat markets, in 1849. He described the anatomy of the newly discovered (in 1847) species of ape, the gorilla, [1865]. He engaged in a long running public debate with Thomas Henry Huxley on the evolution of humans from apes. He was a member of the preliminary Committee of organisation for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was Superintendent of the natural history collections at the British Museum, in 1856, and began researches on the collections, publishing many papers on specimens. He was prosector for the London Zoo, dissecting and preserving any zoo animals that died in captivity. He taught natural history to Queen Victoria's children, in 1860. He reported on the first specimen of an unusual Jurassic bird fossil from Germany, Archaeopteryx lithographica, in 1863. He lectured on fossils at the Museum of Practical Geology, and he was Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution, during 1859-1861. His taxonomic work included a number of important discoveries, as he named and described a vast number of living and fossil vertebrates. He campaigned to make the natural history departments of the British Museum into a separate museum, leading to the construction of a new building in South Kensington to house the new British Museum (Natural History), opened in 1881; [now the Natural History Museum]. He was knighted in 1884. He died in Richmond in 1892.
Whitlock Nicholl was born in Treddington, Worcester, in 1786. He grew up with his uncle, the Reverend John Nicholl. He was placed with Mr Bevan in 1802, a medical practitioner at Cowbridge in Glamorganshire. He entered as a pupil at St George's hospital, in 1806. He attended the lectures of Mr Wilson, Dr Hooper, Dr Pearson, Dr John Clarke, and Sir Everard Home. He was appointed house surgeon at the Lock Hospital, in 1808, and admitted as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1809. He returned to Cowbridge and entered into partnership with his former master, Mr Bevan, and then succeeded him as physician on his retirement. He was created Doctor of Medicine by Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1816, and was admitted an extra Licentiate of the College of Physicians, the same year. He was created Doctor of Medicine by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1817, through the interest of his relation Sir John Nicholl. He had a successful practice in Ludlow. He matriculated from Glasgow in 1825, and attained the M D in 1826. He then moved to London, where he was admitted a Licentiate of the College of Physicians in 1836. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1830. He died in 1838.
Sir Anthony Carlisle was born in Stillington, Durham, in 1768. He was sent to his maternal uncle, Anthony Hubback, in York, for medical training. Following his uncle's death Carlisle transferred to a Durham surgeon, William Green, in 1784. Carlisle went to London in the late 1780s, and attended lectures by John Hunter, Matthew Baillie and others. He became the house pupil of Henry Watson, and on Watson's death succeeded him to the post of surgeon to the Westminster Hospital, in 1793. He began offering lectures on surgery in 1794, hoping to establish a formal medical school there. He advocated the systematic collection and publishing of hospital statistics. He was active in securing the collections of John Hunter for the Royal College of Surgeons, during the 1790s. He was one of the original members of the College in 1800. He sat on Council and the Court of Examiners. He served as Vice-President and twice as President (1829 and 1839). He delivered the Hunterian Oration in 1820. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1804. With William Nicholson, he electrolyzed water into its constituent gases and communicated this to the Royal Society in 1800. He secured the post of Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy in 1808, and also studied art there. He was appointed surgeon to the Duke of Gloucester and then surgeon-extraordinary to the Prince Regent (later King George IV). He was investigated but exonerated for three cases of neglect in 1838. He opposed male midwives on the grounds of modesty and incompetence. He died in 1840.
An ola is a leaf or strip of a leaf of the palmyra, traditionally used in Southern India and Sri Lanka for writing on. It is also a letter or document written on such a leaf.
The Sinhalese are the native inhabitants of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon).
Richard Phillips Jones was born in c 1797. He was educated at St George's Hospital. He entered as a 12 month pupil of Sir Everard Home, in 1817. He became MRCS in 1819. He obtained his MD from Glasgow, in 1821. He was a member of a Medical Board attending those dying of cholera in Wales, in 1832. He was appointed Honorary Physician to the Chester General Infirmary, in 1835. He became Physician to the Denbighshire General Dispensary and Asylum for Recovery of Health. He was appointed JP for the City of Chester and County of Denbigh, in 1845. He was Mayor of Chester, 1846-1848 and 1852-1853. He became FRCS in 1858. He also became Consulting Physician and Honorary Governor of the Chester General Infirmary, in 1861. He died in 1867.
Russell Claude Brock was born in 1903. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, and entered Guy's Medical School, with an arts scholarship, at the age of 17. He won the Treasurer's Gold Medal both in medicine and in surgery, and the Golding Bird Medal in pathology. He also won the BMA Prize Essay in 1926. After qualifying with the Conjoint Diploma he sat the London MBBS examination a year later and obtained honours in medicine, surgery and anatomy. He became Hunterian Professor in 1928, and was awarded a Rockefeller Travelling Fellowship in 1929. He joined the department of Evarts Graham in St Louis, from which he developed his interest in thoracic surgery. On his return he became surgical registrar and tutor at Guy's, and a research fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain, in 1932. He won the Jacksonian Prize in 1935, and in the same year was appointed consultant thoracic surgeon to the London County Council. He was appointed to the staff of Guy's in 1936, and the Brompton Hospital, and Surgeon to the Ministry of Pensions at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton. During World War Two he was thoracic surgeon and regional advisor in thoracic surgery to the EMS. After the war he was elected to the Council of the College. He served successively from 1949-1966 as a member of Council, Vice-President and finally President, 1963-1966. During this period he delivered the Bradshaw Lecture in 1957, and the Hunterian Oration in 1960. After relinquishing the Presidency he became a member of the Court of Patrons and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Hunterian Collection. On retirement from his hospital posts in 1968, he continued to devote himself to his private patients and to his researches as Director of the College's Department of Surgical Sciences which he had promoted while President. He was active in promoting the Private Pensions Plan, of which he was Chairman, 1967-1977, and President in 1978. He received twenty or more honorary Fellowships and Doctorates from the British Isles, Europe and North and South America, as well as numerous prizes and gold medals. He was President of the Thoracic Society in 1951, President of the Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1958 and President of the Medical School of London in 1968. He died in 1980.
Sir John Bland-Sutton was born in Enfield Highway, in 1855. He was educated at the local school, where he acted for two years as pupil teacher with the intention of becoming a schoolmaster. He was dtermined to become a doctor as soon as he had the money necessary to pay the fees. He attended the private school of anatomy kept by Thomas Cooke, FRCS, off Mecklenburgh Square. Here he learnt and taught anatomy, until he could afford the fees at the Middlesex Hospital. He entered there as a student in 1878, and was immediately appointed Prosector of Anatomy. He became junior demonstrator in 1879; senior demonstrator in 1883; and lecturer from 1886-1896. He was Murchison scholar at the Royal College of Physicians in 1884. He was elected assistant surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital in 1886, with the proviso that he should remain in London during the months of August and September, when the senior surgeons were accustomed to take their annual holiday. He became assistant surgeon to the Hospital for Women in 1886, and was promoted to surgeon six months later. He became surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital from 1905-1920, when he resigned and was made consulting surgeon. At the Royal College of Surgeons he won the Jacksonian prize in 1892; he gave the Erasmus Wilson lectures in 1885-1887 and 1889-1891; he was elected a member of the Pathological Society in 1882 and served on the Council of the Society from 1887-1890; he was an examiner in anatomy for the Fellowship in 1895; he was a Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology from 1888-1889, and gave a lecture as Hunterian Professor in 1916; he was Bradshaw Lecturer in 1917; and Hunterian Orator in 1923. Elected to the Council in 1910, he was Vice-President in 1918-1920, and was President for the years 1923-1925. In 1927 he was elected a trustee of the Hunterian collection. During World War One he was gazetted major, RAMC(T) in 1916, and was attached to the 3rd London General Hospital at Denmark Hill. The surroundings and discipline of a military hospital proved uncongenial, and in 1916 he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, placed upon an appeal board, and directed to collect he specimens of gunshot wounds which formed a unique display in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, until they were destroyed by the bombing of 1941. Bland-Sutton became a prosector at the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park in 1881 whilst he was still a student at the Middlesex Hospital. He was made Vice-President of the Zoological Society of London in 1928. He lectured on comparative pathology at the Royal Veterinary College in Camden Town from 1891-1892. He was President of the Medical Society of London 1914; President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland 1929; President of the Royal Society of Medicine 1929; and President of the International Cancer Conference held in London in 1928. He was also a Knight of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem from 1924. He died in 1936.
Thomas Moore wrote these notes during lectures by Alexander Monro, presumably secundus, (1733-1817). A Thomas Moore graduated MD at Edinburgh in 1815. No other biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
Alexander Monro, secundus, was born in Edinburgh in 1733. He was the third son of Alexander Monro, primus, (1697-1767), Professor of Medicine and Anatomy at Edinburgh University. From an early age Alexander was designated as his father's successor as Professor of Medicine and his father took his education very seriously. Monro secundus' name first appears on his father's anatomy class list in 1744. The following year he matriculated in the faculty of arts at Edinburgh University. He began attending medical lectures in 1750. In 1753, still a student, he took over the teaching of his father's summer anatomy class and at his father's instigation was named joint professor of medicine and anatomy in 1754. He graduated MD in 1755, and then went on an anatomical grand tour, studying in London with William Hunter, and in Berlin with Johann Friedrick Meckel. He matriculated on 17 Sep at Leiden University and became friends with Albinus. His tour was interrupted when his father's recurring illness brought him home to take up the duties of the professorship in 1758. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1759. In the 50 years he taught at Edinburgh University Monro secundus became the most influential anatomy professor in the English speaking world, lecturing daily from 1 to 3pm, in the 6-month winter session. He spent every morning preparing for his class anatomical specimens from his own extensive collection. When the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh attempted to institute a professorship of surgery Monro acted vigorously to protect his chair, protesting to the town council against such a step. He succeeded in 1777 in having the title of his own professorship formally changed to the chair of medicine, anatomy and surgery, preventing the establishment of a course of surgery in Edinburgh for thirty years. The anatomical research which secured Monro's posthumous medical reputation was his description of the communication between the lateral ventricles of the brain, now known as the foramen of Monro. He first noted it in a paper read before the Philosophical Scoiety of Edinburgh in 1764. Monro was a member of the Harveian Society (a medical supper club), secretary to the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, a manager of the Royal Infirmary, and district commissioner for the city of Edinburgh. He married Katherine Inglis on 25 September 1762, and they had two daughters and three sons. The eldest son Alexander Monro tertius (1773-1859), succeeded his father as Professor of Medicine, Anatomy and Surgery. Monro secundus died in 1817.
Benjamin Thompson was born the son of Benjamin Thompson and Ruth Simonds, in Woburn, Massachusetts, North America, in 1753. He had little formal schooling and educated himself by reading books. Later, he attended lectures at Harvard University and became a school teacher. He moved to Concord, New Hampshire and in 1772, he married Sarah Walker Rolfe, a wealthy widow; they had one daughter. In 1775, they separated permanently. Thompson then became an active member of the Tory party and fled to London, England at the fall of Boston. He was given employment at the Colonial Office and occupied himself with various experiments such as the optimal position of firing vents in canons and the velocity of shot. In 1779 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1780 he was made under-secretary for the colonies and later returned to America as Lieutenant-Colonel in the American Dragoons of George III. In 1784 he was knighted. From 1784-1795, he joined the service of the court of the elector of Bavaria and became head of the Bavarian Army. In 1793, he was made a Count of the Holy Roman Empire and took the name of Count (von) Rumford. He continued his scientific work and showed that heat was lost through convection and as a result he made military cloth to be more insulating. He made soup a staple and nutritional diet for the poor. He also designed a drip-type coffee maker, the double boiler and pots and pans to be used on his `insulated box' more commonly known as a stove. He later designed more efficient fire places whereby the size of the throat was enlarged according to the size of the fire place in order to reduce the amount of smoke emissions. He studied light and made standard candles, and later used steam for efficient production in the manufacture of soap and dye and also in breweries. In 1796, he gave a large amount of money to the Royal Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston, America, for scientific research prizes into heat and light. In 1799, he helped found the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) with the idea of making it into a museum for technology to educate the poor. He established lectures and gained money from the aristocracy in order to fund the RI, introducing Humphry Davy (later Sir) and Thomas Young as early professors. However, he lost interest in the running of the RI and went to Paris, France, where he married Marie-Anne, widow of Antoine Lavoisier. The marriage failed and he retired to Auteuil, France, where he later died in 1814. Many of his papers were reprinted, for example under S. C. Brown, The Nature of Heat, 1968; Practical Applications of Heat, 1969; Devices and Techniques, 1969; Light and Armament, 1970; Public Institutions, 1970.
Eric Rideal was born the son of Samuel Rideal, a public analyst and consulting chemist, and Elizabeth at Sydenham, Kent. He was educated at Farnham Grammar School and Oundle School as a child. In 1907 he entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge to read natural sciences. In 1910 he gained first class honours in part one of the Tripos, and subsequently gained first class honours in part two of the Tripos in 1911. A lecturer at Cambridge, Sir William Bate Hardy, steered Eric Rideal into studying surface chemistry. This resulted in him researching at Aachen and Bonn, Germany. He studied electrochemistry and graduated in 1912 and in 1913 he gained the gold medal of the Bonn Society of Engineers for his research. He returned to Westminster, England and in 1914, he worked with war supplies. He was under the Artists' Rifles and moved on to the Royal Engineers as Captain. He was invalided in 1916 and returned to scientific research namely nitrogen research at the University College London laboratory. In 1919 he co-wrote Catalysis in Theory and Practice with H. S. Taylor. He was a visiting professor of the University of Illinois in 1919 and in 1921, he married Margaret Atlee, widow of William Agnew Paton. In 1930 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. He also became Professor of Colloid Physics (later Colloid Science) at Cambridge University in 1930, a position he held until 1946. During this period he worked on electrochemistry, heterogeneous catalysis, colloid and surface chemistry and kinetics spectroscopy. From 1939-1945 he worked on explosives, fuels and polymers for the war effort of the Second World War. In 1946 he became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory at The Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI). He left the RI in 1949 and became Professor of Chemistry at King's College London in 1950, retiring in 1955. In 1951 he was knighted and also gained the Davy medal of the Royal Society. From 1953 to 1958, he was Chairman of the Advisory Council on Scientific Research and the Technical Development of the Ministry of Supply. He was elected a Fellow of King's College London in 1963. He died in a nursing home in London in 1974.
Humphry Davy was born the son of Robert Davy, a wood carver, and Grace Millet in Penzance, Cornwall. He taught himself a great deal through reading, but also attended local grammar schools in Penzance and Truro. In 1795 he was apprenticed to John Bingham Borlase, surgeon of Penzance, where he was introduced to the rudiments of science by Robert Dunkin, a saddler. In 1798 he joined the Pneumatic Institution at Bristol as an assistant to Thomas Beddoes. There he began researches into heat and light which he later published. In 1799 he published the first volume of West Country Collections and Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration. He experimented with nitrous oxide and suggested that it could be used for surgery due to its anaesthetic properties, however this was ignored and not used until much later in the century. In 1801 he gave his first lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) and became Director of the Chemistry Laboratory. In 1802 he became Professor of Chemistry at the RI which he held until 1812. In 1803 he gave his first lecture to the Royal Society, of which he was elected a Fellow and received its Copley medal in 1805. In 1804 he entered Jesus College Cambridge perhaps to finish his medical studies, but he never attended. As Assistant Lecturer at the RI, he undertook research for the Managers, and he also became Chemistry Professor to the Board of Agriculture and Internal Improvement (a non-government organisation). In particular he researched into the problems of using oak bark for the tanning of leather and discovered that catechu from mimosa of India was much better. In 1805-1806, he toured Ireland and Cornwall with Thomas Bernard to research into mineralogy. After this he was released from investigations for the RI and in 1807 he won the Napoleonic Prize from the Institute of France for his discoveries of the constitution of oxymuratic acid and for demonstrating the existence of potassium, sodium and chlorine by agency of a galvanic battery, thus developing the theory of electrochemical action. In 1812 he was knighted by the Prince Regent and also married a wealthy widow, Mrs Jane Apreece. He then retired from the RI and was made Honorary Professor. In 1813 he visited laboratories in France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany with his wife and Michael Faraday (1791-1867) as his assistant, secretary and reluctant valet. He experimented with pigments and combustion of diamonds as well as iodine which he discovered at the same time as the French chemist, Joseph Louis Gay-Lusaac (who called it iode). On his return to London in 1815, Humphry was asked to look into the problem of explosions in mines. He discovered that gas and the flames used to give light to miners caused the explosions, so he designed the miners safety lamp. He toured the continent again in the late 1810s. In 1820 he became President of the Royal Society which he held until 1827. During the 1820s, he discovered that by applying zinc or iron to the copper bottoms of ships, corrosion could be prevented. However, it was deemed a failure as plant life in the sea would adhere to the ships thus causing dragging. In 1826 he travelled to Europe again where he continued to work until his death in 1829. He was buried in the cemetery of Plain-Palais, Geneva and there is a tablet in his memory at Westminster Abbey.
John Davy was born the son of Robert Davy, a woodcarver and Grace Millet in Penzance, Cornwall. He attended preparatory schools in Penzance as a child and later assisted his brother, Humphry Davy, in the laboratory of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) in 1808. In 1810 John studied medicine at Edinburgh University gaining his degree in 1814. He experimented on the muriatic theories of his brother in order to help prove them. He entered the British Army Medical Department as a surgeon. He became the Inspector General of Hospitals and it was in this capacity that he travelled over much of the British Empire during his foreign service thus producing several notebooks on his observations of various countries. In 1821 he published An Account of the Interior of Ceylon. In 1830 he married Margaret Fletcher. In 1836 he wrote the Memoirs of the Life of Sir Humphry Davy and he edited the collected works of his brother, producing nine volumes in 1839-1840. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1834 and published over 100 papers on observations such as the structure of the heart and circulatory system of amphibians; these are listed in the Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers. He lived in the West Indies for a time and returned to the Lake District in the United Kingdom for the remainder of his life. In 1862-1863 he published his Diseases of the Army. Upon his death in 1868, he bequeathed a piece of plate to the Royal Society which had been presented to Sir Humphry Davy by the mine owners for the invention of the safety lamp. His brother had wanted the plate to provide a medal for scientific research.
William Robert Grove was born the son of John Grove, a magistrate, and Anne Bevan, in Swansea, Wales, in 1811. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford and graduated in 1832. In 1835, he became a barrister at Lincoln's Inn and also became a member of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) in the same year. In 1837 he married Emma Powles and they subsequently had six children. Despite his occupation in law, he was interested in science and researched into electrochemistry. He developed the Grove gas voltaic battery' in 1839, and also developed theGrove cell' using platinum for increased voltage. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1840, and gained their Royal medal in 1847. In 1841 he became Professor of Experimental Philosophy at the London Institution, in Finsbury Square, London, where he also gave lectures. In 1846 he published On the Correlation of Physical Forces, which established the theory of the mutual convertibility of forces. He was a member of the Chemical Society; a Member of the Council of the Royal Society from 1846 to 1847 and became Secretary of the Royal Society from 1848 to 1849. He retired from being a barrister in 1853 due to ill health, but he also became part of Queen's Counsel in the same year. He then became a member of the Royal Commission on the Law of Patents in 1864, and a Judge in the Court of Common Pleas in 1871. In 1871 he was knighted. He became a Judge of the Queen's Bench in 1880 and Privy Councillor in 1887. He died in London in 1896.
William Crookes was born the son of Joseph Crookes, tailor, and Mary Scott in London, in 1832. His education was irregular but eventually he attended A W Hofmann's Royal College of Chemistry in London in 1848. In 1850 he became Hofmann's assistant until 1854. He attended lectures at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) given by Michael Faraday (1791-1867). In 1854 he was Superintendent of the Meteorological Department of the Radcliffe Astronomical Observatory in Oxford. In 1854 he worked with John Spiller on the collodion process of photography and improved it. In 1855 he taught chemistry at the College of Science in Chester. In 1856, he researched into photography and compiled a Handbook to the Waxed-Paper Process in Photography (Chapman and Hall, 1857). He also undertook the editorship of the Liverpool Photographic Journal in 1856, and in 1857 he became Secretary of the London Photographic Society, a position he held until 1858. He was also the editor and proprietor of the weekly Chemical News journal from 1859. In 1856 he married Ellen Humphrey and they subsequently had ten children. Crookes researched into spectra and in 1861 he discovered a new element which he called thallium. In 1863 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (RS). In 1865 he discovered the process of extracting precious metals from ores, however it had already been discovered in America and Crookes had to negotiate half rights over patents for using sodium amalgam, only to be superseded by the discovery of potassium cyanide as the best solvent of gold. From 1867 he became interested in spiritualism, which affected his views on science. By 1870 he decided to investigate spiritualism as a scientist and prove the existence of psychic force, an investigation which caused him to lose some respect as a scientist. Despite this, he developed the technique of determining the atomic weight of thallium. In 1873 he wrote the paper `Attraction and Repulsion resulting from Radiation' published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society; this resulted in his invention of the radiometer in 1875. In 1876 he researched into radiant matter and found that molecular pressure was the result of radiant matter being affected by magnets. In the 1880s he worked on incandescent lamps for electricity. He became Director of the Electric Light and Power Company in 1881 and patented his designs on incandescent lamps, however he sold these as newer and better designs developed. In c1891 he became Director and later Chairman of the Notting Hill Electric Light Company which prospered in its time. In 1890 he was elected President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers. In 1897 he was elected President of the Society for Psychical Research and in the same year he was knighted. He gave lectures on making diamonds at the RI in 1897 and became its Honorary Secretary in 1900 a position he held until 1912. In 1908 he was elected Foreign Secretary of the RS until 1913 when he was elected President of the RS, a position he held until 1915. He published papers in journals such as Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, as well as Proceedings of the Royal Society and in Chemical News. He died in 1919.
William Henry Bragg was born in Westward, Cumberland, the son of Robert John Bragg, a farmer, and Mary Wood in 1862. He was educated at Market Harborough and attended King William's College on the Isle of Man. In 1881 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge to study Mathematics. In 1884 he was third wrangler in part one of the Tripos and gained a first in part 3 of the Mathematical Tripos in 1885. In 1886 he became Elder Professor of Mathematics and Physics of the University of Adelaide and moved to Australia. In 1889 he married Gwendoline Todd and they had three children, William Lawrence, Robert Charles and Gwendoline Mary. He did not undertake much research until after addressing some scientific people in the country about current and past research in 1904. With the assistance of R. D. Kleeman, he decided to research into the radiations of electrons, x-rays, radioactivity and the extent to which they were absorbed and scattered by gases and solids. He discovered that alpha-particles of radium were ceased in ionisation. In 1903 he became President of Section A of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1907 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1909 he returned to England as Cavendish Professor of the University of Leeds which he held until 1915. In 1912 Max Von Laue showed that x-rays are diffracted by the atoms of a crystal. Using ionisation on such work and working with his son, William Lawrence Bragg (known as Lawrence in order to distinguish him from his father), they developed the science of x-ray crystallography. In 1913 he used ionisation to reflect x-rays and together with his son Lawrence, published "X-Rays and Crystal Structure" in 1915. He won the Nobel Prize for physics with Lawrence in 1915. He also gained several medals for his work on x-rays and crystallography, such as the Rumford medal in 1916 and the Copley medal in 1930 from the Royal Society, and the Faraday medal in 1936 from the Institution of Electrical Engineers. From 1915 to 1923, he was the Quain Professor of Physics at the University of London. During the First World War, he worked on underwater acoustics for the Admiralty in order to detect submarines. He was knighted in 1920. He became Fullerian Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Davy-Faraday Research Laboratory at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) in 1923. He was known as a good lecturer and had many of his lectures published for example: The World of Sound in 1920 and Concerning the Nature of Things in 1925, which were taken from his Christmas Lectures given at the RI. He published papers such as `On the Absorption of X-rays and the Classification of the X-rays in Radium' in Philosophical Magazine in 1904, and others in Nature, Proceedings of the Royal Society and Transactions Royal Society South Australia; and books such as Crystallography and X-Rays and Crystal Structure. In 1932 he became President of the Physical Society. In 1935 he became President of the Royal Society. He died at the RI, London, in 1942.
David Gregory of Kinnairdie (1627-1720), inventor: apprenticed by his father to a mercantile house in Holland; returned in 1655, and succeeded to the estate of Kinnairdie on the death of an older brother; highly regarded in medicine, having a large gratuitous practice both among the poor, and people of standing; first man in Aberdeenshire to possess a barometer, and his weather forecasts exposed him to suspicions of witchcraft; moved to Aberdeen and investigated artillery; with the help of an Aberdeen watchmaker constructed an improved model of a cannon, forwarding it to his eldest son David, and to Sir Isaac Newton, who held it was 'for the diabolical purpose of increasing carnage', and who urged him to break it up.
David Gregorie (1661-1708), astronomer: son of David Gregory (1627-1720); Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh University in 1683; first professor to lecture publicly on Newtonian philosophy, and enthusiastic promoter of Newton's 'Principia'; in 1691 went to Oxford where he was introduced to Newton, who became an intimate friend and who with John Flamsteed influenced his appointment as Savilian Professor of Astronomy in Oxford; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1692; his principal work Astronomiae Physicae et Geometricae Elementa in 1702 was the first text book composed on gravitational principles and remodelling astronomy in conformity with physical theory; approved by Newton, who had included in it his lunar theory, and for which he wrote a preface; Gregory was a skilful mathematician who left manuscript treatises on fluxions, trigonometry, mechanics and hydrostatics, and who was also known for his printing in 1703 of all the writings attributed, with any show of authority, to Euclid.
James Gregory (1638-1675), mathematician: younger brother of David Gregory (1627-1708); his scientific talent was discovered and encouraged by his brother, and in 1673 at the age of 24 he published his Optica Promota, containing the first feasible description of a reflecting telescope, his invention of it dating from 1661, and inspiring Newton to make his own reflecting telescope; studied mathematics in Padua, 1664-1667, publishing Vera Circuli et Hyperbolae Quadratura in 1667, showing how to find the areas of the circle, elipse, and hyperbole by means of converging series, and applying the same new method to calculation of logarithms; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1668; friendly debate with Newton, 1672-1673, as to merits of their respective telescopes; from 1674 first exclusively mathematical professor at Edinburgh.
Charles Gregory was one of the 32 children of David Gregory (1627-1720) and brother of the second David Gregory (1661-1708).