Thomas Keate was born in 1745. He studied as a pupil at St George's Hospital, London, and then became an assistant to John Gunning, surgeon to the Hospital. In 1792, the position of surgeon became available to succeed Charles Hawkins, which was sharply contested by Keate and Everard Home. Keate was elected as surgeon. In 1793 he succeeded John Hunter as surgeon-general to the Army, he was an examiner at the Royal College of Surgeons from 1800, and Master of the College in 1802, 1809, and 1818. As a surgeon he was the first to tie the subclavian artery for aneurysm. However, his reputation at St George's Hospital for not being punctual and being negligent in his duties, caused him to resign his post in 1813. Keate was surgeon to the Prince of Wales (later George IV), and also surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital, where he died in 1821. Keate published Cases of Hydrocele and Hernia (London, 1788), and several controversial papers such as Observations on the Fifth Report of the Commissioners of Medical Enquiry (London, 1808).
Charles Dagge Seager was born in 1779. He was educated at Warminster Grammar School. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1801, and was one of the 300 founding members. He practised for many years in Cheltenham, c 1810; he appears also to have practised or resided in Guernsey. He retired to Clifton, c 1840. He became a Fellow of the College in 1843. Seager made a careful transcript of John Hunter's Lectures on Surgery, c 1800, originally taken down and arranged into aphorisms by John Hunter's friend, Charles Brandon Trye.
No biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
William Hunter was born in Long Calderwood, Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1718. Intended for the church, he attended the University of Glasgow from 1731-1736 where he was exposed to the philosophical teachings of Francis Hutcheson which turned him against the rigid dogmas of Presbyterian theology. An acquaintance with the physician William Cullen (1710-1790) interested him in the medical profession, and he studied with Cullen for three years. Eager to widen his experience, he went to London in 1741 where he worked as an assistant to William Smellie MD (1697-1763) and then from 1741-1742 with James Douglas, both of whom fostered his interest in obstetrics and gynaecology. Between 1741-1749 he was tutor to William George Douglas. In 1750 he was awarded an MD by the University of Glasgow. In 1749 he was appointed as a surgeon at Middlesex Hospital, England, before transferring for a brief time to the British Lying-in Hospital. He was particularly interested in obstetrics and in 1762 was called to attend Queen Charlotte on the birth of her first child. Two years later, he was appointed as Physician Extraordinary to Queen Charlotte and rapidly became the most sought after physician in London. His research, embodied in his Anatomical Description of the Human Gravid Uterus (1774) and his practical example, including the establishment of specialist training for both physicians and midwives, did much to establish obstetrics as a respectable branch of medicine for the first time, though he took a perverse pleasure in continuing to describe himself as a despised 'man-midwife'. He died in 1783.
William Cooke was born in Wem, near Shrewsbury, in c 1785. At age 13 he was apprenticed to Mr Gwynne, a general practitioner in Wem. He came to London in 1802 and studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital under John Abernethy. Cooke passed his MRCS Eng in 1806, settling to practice in Plaistow, and later moving to the City of London. He received his MD from St Andrews in 1822. Cooke was a founding member of the Hunterian Society, in 1818. He translated Morgagni's De Sedibus (1761), in 1822, which was re-titled On the Treatment and Causes of Diseases Investigated by Anatomy, Translated, Abridged and Elucidated by Copious Notes. He died in 1873.
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.
Henry Cline was born in London in 1750. he was educated at Merchant Taylors' School. He was apprenticed to Thomas Smith, surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital, London, and during his apprenticeship he lectured for Joseph Else, lecturer on anatomy at the hospital. Cline obtained his diploma from Surgeon's Hall in 1774, and in the same year attended a course of John Hunter's lectures. Cline became a surgeon to St Thomas's in 1784. He was elected a member of the court of assistants of the Surgeons' Company in 1796. He became an examiner at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1810, and in 1812 resigned his appointments at St Thomas's. He was succeeded as surgeon by his son Henry (d 1820). He became master of the College of Surgeons in 1815, and in 1816 delivered the Hunterian oration, which was never published. He gave the oration again in 1824. In 1823 Cline was President of the College, the title having been changed from that of Master in 1821. He died in 1827.
Sir Astley Paston Cooper was born in Brooke Hall, Norfolk, in 1768. He was educated at home. He was articled to his uncle, William Cooper, senior surgeon at Guy's Hospital in London, in 1784. He lived in the house of Henry Cline, surgeon at nearby St Thomas's Hospital, whom he became apprenticed to instead. He became Cline's anatomy demonstrator in 1789, and he shared the lectures on anatomy and surgery with Cline, in 1791. He attended lectures by Desault and Chopart in Paris, in 1792. Cooper taught at St Thomas's and worked in dissections and lectured in anatomy and surgery, during the 1790s. A compilation of notes based on his lectures was published in 1820 titled Outlines of Lectures on Surgery, which went through many editions. From 1793 until 1796 Cooper was also lecturer in anatomy at the Company of Surgeons (after 1800 the Royal College of Surgeons). In 1800 his uncle, William Cooper, resigned as surgeon to Guy's Hospital and Cooper was elected to the post. He was elected professor of comparative anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1813-1815. He became a member of the court of examiners of the college in 1822, and he served as president twice, in 1827 and 1836. He was also a vice-president of the Royal Society, to whose fellowship he had been elected in 1802, and won the society's Copley medal. He was a member of the Physical Society at Guy's. the Medico-Chirurgical Society, and the Pow-Wow, a medical dining club started by John Hunter. He was created a baronet in 1821. He died in 1840.
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.
Anne Home Hunter was born in Greenlaw, Berwickshire, in 1742. She was a poet, and the wife of John Hunter, the surgeon and anatomist. She died in 1821.
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.
John Howship was born in 1781. He became assistant surgeon at the St George's Infirmary, London and a lecturer at the school of the St George's Hospital. He moved to the Charing Cross Hospital as Assistant Surgeon, in 1834, and was promoted to chief surgeon in 1836 after his predecessor, Thomas Pettigrew was dismissed after being found guilty of demanding and obtaining £500 from Mr Howship for the assistant surgeon position. Howship gave the Hunterian Lecture at the College of Surgeons in 1833. He died in 1841.
William White Cooper was born in Holt, Wiltshire, in 1816. He studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital from 1834, and became a private pupil of surgeon Edward Stanley. Cooper took notes of Sir Richard Owen's lectures on comparative anatomy given at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in 1838-1839. Owen was impressed and awarded Cooper a prize. The notes were later published as Lectures in the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals (1843). Cooper received the MRCS in 1838, and the FRCS in 1845. He was one of the original staff of the North London Eye Institution. Subsequently he became Ophthalmic Surgeon to St Mary's Hospital Paddington. He was appointed Surgeon-Oculist in Ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1859. He died in 1886, before his imminent knighthood.
Thomas Wormald was born in Pentonville, in 1802. He was educated at Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire, and afterwards by the Rev W Heald, Vicar of Bristol. He was apprenticed to John Abernethy in 1818. He visited schools in Paris and saw the surgical practice of Dupuytren, Roux, Larrey, Cloquet, Cruveithier, and Velpeau. He became House Surgeon to William Lawrence in 1824. He became Demonstrator of Anatomy in 1826, and held the post for fifteen years. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1838, and spent the next 23 years teaching in the out-patient department. He became full Surgeon in 1861, and was obliged to resign under the age rule in 1867, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon. He was Consulting Surgeon to the Foundling Hospital from 1843-1864, where his kindness to the children was so highly appreciated that he received the special thanks of the Court of Management and was complimented by being elected a Governor. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of Council from 1840-1867; Hunterian Orator in 1857; a Member of the Court of Examiners from1858-1868; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1864; Vice-President in 1863 and 1864; and was elected President in 1865. He died in 1873.
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.
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.
William Heberden was born in Southwark, London, in 1710. He was educated at the local grammar school. He transferred to St John's College, Cambridge, in 1724, and became a Fellow in 1730. He practised as a physician in Cambridge for several years, delivering a series of lectures on Materia Medica, for 10 years. He was admitted as a Candidate of the College of Physicians, in 1745 and a Fellow in 1746. He settled in London in 1748, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1749. He was also nominated Gulstonian Lecturer in 1749; Harveian orator in 1750; and Croonian lecturer in 1760. He was censor in 1749, 1755, and 1760; Consiliarius in 1762; and was constituted an Elect in 1762, which he resigned in 1781. He died in 1801.
George James Guthrie was born in London, in 1785. He was apprenticed to Dr Phillips, a surgeon in Pall Mall. He attended the Windmill Street School of Medicine, and was one of those into whose arms William Cruikshank fell when he was delivering his last lecture on the brain in 1800. Guthrie served as hospital mate at the York Hospital, Chelsea from 1800-1801. Surgeon General Thomas Keate issued an order that all hospital mates must be members of the newly formed College of Surgeons. Aged 16, Guthrie was examined by Keate himself, and made such a good impression that he was posted to the 29th Regiment immediately. He accompanied the 29th Regiment to North America as Assistant Surgeon, remained there until 1807, then returned to England with the regiment and was immediately ordered out to the Peninsula. He served there until 1814, seeing much service and earning the special commendation of the Duke of Wellington. Aged 26, he acted as Principal Medical Officer at the Battle of Albuera. He was appointed Deputy Inspector of Hospitals in 1812, but the Medical Board in London refused to confirm the appointment because of his youth. He was placed on half pay at the end of the campaign, and began to practise privately in London. He attended the lectures of Charles Bell and Benjamin Brodie at the Windmill Street School of Medicine. He went to Brussels after the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815, where he carried out a number of operations including tying the peroneal artery by cutting down upon it through the calf muscles, known afterwards as 'Guthrie's bloody operation'. He returned to London and was placed in charge of two clinical wards at the York Hospital, with a promise that the most severe surgical cases would be sent to him. He was instrumental in establishing an Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye in 1816, which became 'The Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital', situated in King William Street, Strand, and removed to Broad Street, Bloomsbury, in 1928. Guthrie was appointed Surgeon and remained attached to the hospital until 1838, when he resigned in favour of his son, C W G Guthrie. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to Westminster Hospital in 1823, becoming full surgeon in 1827. He resigned his office in 1843, again to make way for his son. At the Royal College of Surgeons Guthrie was a Member of Council from 1824-1856; a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1828-1856; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1853; Hunterian Orator in 1830; Vice-President five times; and President in 1833, 1841, and 1854. He was Hunterian Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery from 1828-1832. He was elected FRS in 1827. He died in 1856.
No biographical information relating to William Cotton was available at the time of compilation.
William Long was born in 1747. He became a member of the Corporation of Surgeons in 1769. He was appointed to the Court of Assistants in 1789 until his death, firstly with the Corporation of Surgeons, and also when it became the Royal College of Surgeons in London. He was a member of the Court of Examiners, during 1797-1810. He was elected the second Master of the College in 1800. He became a Governor (equivalent to a Vice-President) between 1800-1807. He was a member of the first Museum Committee set up in 1799. He was Chairman of the Building Committee for the new College building in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in 1784, and became Surgeon, in 1791. He resigned the post in 1807 when he was elected a Governor of the Hospital. He was also a surgeon to the Bluecoat School, 1790-1807. John Painter Vincent, President of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1832 and 1840, was apprenticed to Long. Long became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, in 1792, and the Royal Society, in 1801. He died in 1818.
Sir Charles Blicke was born in 1745. He trained at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and was elected assistant surgeon in 1779. John Abernethy became his apprentice in 1779. Blicke became surgeon in 1787. He was a member of the Court of Assistants at Surgeon's Hall and in 1803 was knighted and became Master of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. The Court of Assistants gave their thanks to him in 1811, for his work as Treasurer during the building of the College. He died in London, in 1815.
William Sharpe was a former member of Court but no further biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
The membership lists for the Royal College of Surgeons of England show more than one William Hutchinson in the early 1800s. No further biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
Sir James Berry was born in Kingston, Ontario, in 1860. He was educated at Whitgift School, Croydon, England, and St Bartholomew's Hospital. At the London BS examination in 1885, Berry took first-class honours and won the University scholarship and gold medal. He served as house surgeon at St Bartholomew's, and was demonstrator of anatomy. He then became surgical registrar. He became surgeon to the Alexandra Hospital for Diseases of the Hip (Queen Square, London) in 1885. He was elected surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital, in 1891. At the start of World War One, Berry's knowledge of Serbia led him and his wife, an anaesthetist at the Royal Free Hospital, to volunteer for medical service there. They organised the Anglo-Serbian hospital unit, under the British Red Cross Society, and largely from the Royal Free Hospital. It was established early-1915 at Vrnjatchka Banja. They were over-run in 1916 by the Austro-Hungarian army and an exchange of prisoners was arranged. Berry then led a Red Cross unit in Romania and was with the Serbian army at Odessa, 1916-1917. He was awarded the Orders of the Star of Romania, St Sava or Serbia, and St Anna of Russia. He returned to England in 1917 and was honorary surgeon at the military hospitals at Napsbury and Bermonsdsey. He was president of the Medical Society of London, 1921-1922; a member of the Council of the RCSEng, 1923-1929; and President of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1926-1928. He was knighted in 1925. He retired in 1927 and was elected consulting surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital. He died in 1946.
No biographical information relating to James Curry or Mr Thorburn 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.
John Barlow was born the son of a parson in 1799. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge and took holy orders soon after. In 1822 he became curate of the Parish of Uckfield, Sussex; from 1830 to 1842 he was rector of Little Bowden, Northamptonshire. In 1824 he married Cecilia Anne Lam (c 1796-1868). He became a member of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) in 1832 and a manager in 1838. In 1834 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. From 1837 to 1838 he was Secretary of the Zoological Society. In 1841 he succeeded Michael Faraday (1791-1867) as Secretary of the Lectures Committee at the RI. In 1843 he was elected Honorary Secretary of the RI, a position he held until 1860. In this role he made many far reaching administrative changes in the running of the RI. He gave lectures at the RI on the practical application of science. He published some of his research in The Discovery of the Vital Principle or Physiology of Man in 1838; he also published On Man's Power Over Himself to Prevent or Control Insanity, which highlighted the importance of moral management of the insane rather than the use of intimidation. In 1851 he became Minister of the Duke Street Chapel, London and from 1854 to 1859, he was Chaplain-in-Ordinary at Kensington Palace. He died in 1869.
Thomas Webster was born in the Orkney Islands, Scotland in c 1772. He was educated in Aberdeen, Scotland before travelling to England and France, making architectural sketches on his journey. He became an architect in London and in 1799 he was Clerk of the Works at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI), employed to design the lecture theatre. He was also a geologist and in 1814 he wrote a paper called `On the Freshwater Formations of the Isle of Wight, with some Observations on the Strata Over the Chalk in the South East Part of England' in Transactions of the Geological Society of London, 2 (1814) 161-254. This study highlighted aspects of British geology not known before indicating upper secondary and tertiary strata, and was very important at the time. Thomas Webster became Curator of the Geological Society's museum and was Professor of Geology at University College London from 1842 to 1844. He died in London in 1844.
William Hasledine Pepys was born the son of W H Pepys, cutler and maker of surgical instruments, in London, in 1775. His educational background is not known. In 1796 he founded the Askesian Society, which led to the foundation of the British Mineralogical Society, the Geological Society and the London Institution, in Finsbury Square, London. He was an original manager of the London Institution and was Honorary Secretary from 1821 to 1824. He became the Treasurer and Vice-President of the Geological Society. He worked on soda-water apparatus in 1798 and also researched into using mercury contacts for electrical apparatus and tubes coated in India rubber to convey gases, inventing the mercury gasometer as a result. In 1807 he invented a type of eudiometer, and in 1808 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. He extended his father's business into making instruments for the philosophical discipline. He was active in the management of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) and was its Vice-President in 1816. He published papers of his work in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and in Philosophical Magazine with William Allen (1770-1843). He was a Quaker and he died in Kensington, London in 1856.
Born, 11 October 1886; fourth son of Colonel Sir Alfred Mordaunt Egerton, KCVO, and the Hon Mary Georgina Ormsby-Gore, eldest daughter of the 2nd Baron Harlech; known from childhood as Jack; attended Eton College, from 1900; his science master was Thomas Cunningham Porter and while at the school Egerton was encouraged to found the Eton College Scientific Society; continued his studies at University College, London, from 1904; read Chemistry under Sir William Ramsey and graduated with first class honours, 1908; his research field was Thermodynamics; worked under Professor Ganz at Nancy University, 1909; Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, 1909-1913; worked with W H Nernst in Berlin, 1913; Department of Explosives Supply, Ministry of Munitions, 1914-1918; Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford, 1918-1935; appointed Reader in Thermodynamics, Oxford University, 1923; elected Fellow of The Royal Society, 1926; served on Council of The Royal Society, 1931-1933; Chair of Chemical Technology, Department of Chemical Technology and Applied Physical Chemistry, Imperial College, 1936-1952; Physical Secretary of The Royal Society, 1938-1948; research on fuel, fire-raising and fire protection, 1939-1945; member of War Cabinet Scientific Advisory Committee; chairman of the Fuel and Propulsion Committee of the Admiralty; ex-officio member of committees connected with The Royal Society; travelled to the USA to reorganise the work of the British Central Scientific Office and to improve scientific liaison between London and Washington, 1942; knighted, 1943; Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Ministry of Fuel and Power, 1948; closely involved in the organization of the Royal Society Scientific Information Conference, London, 1948; travelled abroad, with a special interest in India, which he visited, 1948, 1954; appointed chairman of a committee to review the working and development of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; Director, Salters Institute of Industrial Chemistry, 1949-1959; Emeritus Professor of Chemical Technology, University of London, 1953-1959; Chairman, Commonwealth Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, India, 1954; Adviser to the Tobacco Manufacturers' Standing Committee, 1956; undertook a tour of the Middle East (Beirut, Baghdad and Teheran), 1957; received various Fellowships, honours and awards; Fellow of University College, London, Imperial College and City and Guilds College; honorary degrees from Birmingham, Cairo, Nancy and Helsinki; Honorary President of Combustion Institute; Honorary Editor of Fuel and also of Combustion and Flame; British Coal Utilization Research Associations: Coal Science Lecturer, 1952; Institution of Mechanical Engineers: George Stephenson Research Prize, Herbert Akroyd Stuart Prize, and Thomas Hawkesley Lecturer for 1940; Institution of Civil Engineers: the Telford Premium, 1942; The Royal Society: Rumford Medal, 1946; Institution of Chemical Engineers: Hinchley Memorial Medal, 1954; Institute of Fuel: Melchett Medal, 1956; Combustion Institute: Egerton Medal, 1958; married the Hon Ruth Cripps, 1912; adopted Francis, the posthumous younger son of Egerton's brother Louis who had been killed in the First World War; a keen watercolourist, with an exhibition of his paintings held at the Chenil Galleries, 1957; died in France, in the Alpes-Maritimes, 7 September 1959. Publications: The 1939 Callendar Steam Tables with G S Callendar (E Arnold & Co, London, 1939); Editor of Fuel; lectures and papers largely relating to combustion and utilization of energy.
Brown was born in Liverpool on 9 February 1903, son of George William Arthur Brown, schoolmaster in Warrington, and Helen Wharram. He attended Boteler Grammar School in Warrington, and entered the University of Manchester on a scholarship to study medicine, where A V Hill, the Nobel prize winner, was his professor of physiology. He took an honours B.Sc. in physiology in 1924, then won the Platt Physiological Scholarship which enabled him to do research with B A McSwiney, earning an M.Sc. (1925). He qualified in Medicine in 1928 (MB, Ch.B Manch.), winning the Bradley Prize and medal for operative surgery. He joined McSwiney as lecturer in physiology at Leeds University in 1928, taking six months' leave to work in Sir C S Sherrington's laboratory at Oxford, and collaborating with J C Eccles. In 1934 Sir Henry Dale offered, and Brown accepted, a post at the National Institute for Medical Research in Hampstead, where he worked with (Sir) John Gaddum and W S Feldberg establishing the cholinergic theory of chemical transmission. In 1942 the Royal Naval Personnel Research Committee was established, and he became involved very successfully with diving and underwater operations, remaining Secretary to the RNPRC until 1949, and then its chairman until 1969. In 1949 he accepted the Jodrell Chair of Physiology at University College London, where he strenghthened the physiology and biophysics departments under (Sir) Bernard Katz and worked with J S Gillespie on adrenergic transmission. He served on various Royal Society committees, becoming Biological Secretary, 1955-1963. In 1960 he accepted the Waynflete chair of physiology in Oxford, becoming a Fellow of Magdalen. He also became a member of the Franks Commission of Inquiry into the working of Oxford University. In 1967 he resigned his chair to be elected Principal of Hertford College Oxford, although he continued with his research group in the pharmacology department. He was responsible for inaugurating the College's major apeal, negotiated two senior research fellowships, and dealt lightly with student restiveness. He married in 1930 Jane Rosamond, daughter of Charles Herbert Lees, FRS, Professor of Physics in the University of London and Vice-Principal of Queen Mary College, and had one daughter and three sons.
The images of the Fellows of the Royal Society have been collected since the foundation of the Society in 1660.
Henry Maull formed four companies: Maull and Polyblank 1856-1865; Maull, Henry and Co 1866-1872; Maull and Co 1873-1878; Maull and Fox 1879-1908. His studios specialised in portraits of noted individuals. The studios were based in 62 Cheapside E.C, 187A Piccadilly W, 55 Gracechurch Street and Tavistock House, Fulham Road S W.
The Journal Book Copy was transcribed retrospectively in the early eighteenth century, and then regularly to the early nineteenth century, for the purpose of greater security.
Begins with the very first meeting of the newly formed Society, held in Gresham College on 28 November 1660 following a lecture by Christopher Wren. A copy of the Journal Book Original was made retrospectively in the early eighteenth century, and then regularly to the early nineteenth century for the purposes of greater security. In 1988 at the Special General Meeting of 17 November 1988 the Council approved a proposal, expressed in detail in an Appendix , to formally amend Statute 60, to separate the business meetings of the Society from the scientific lectures and meetings. The scientific discussions and lectures open to Fellows alone had been replaced with a programme of lectures and meetings open to all, with ordinary meetings of Fellows having become brief formal meetings for Statutory business.
Decisions on the venues and dates of lectures , which broke the tradition that lectures be tied to Ordinary meetings, had been made by Council on 16 June 1988, minute 22.
John Henry Gaddum was born on 31 March 1900 in Hale, Cheshire, the eldest of 6 children. His father was a silk importer who did much charitable work and who had a great influence on his son. He was educated at Miss Wallace's day school in Bowdon, Cheshire, then Moorland House School, Heswall, Cheshire, and from 1913 at Rugby School. He was encouraged to take up science by F A Meyer who later became headmaster of Bedales. He won two leaving exhibitions - one general, one for mathematics. In 1919 he went to Trinity College Cambridge on an entrance scholarship for mathematics, and read medicine. He won a senior scholarship at Trinity in 1922 and obtained second class honours in the Science Tripos (Part II) in Physiology. In 1922 he became a medical student at University College Hospital, London. In 1925 he applied for and won a post at the Wellcome Research Laboratories under J W Trevan, writing his first paper on the quantitative aspects of drug antagonism. In 1927 he went to work for Sir Henry Dale at the National Institute for Medical Research in Hampstead, where he stayed for six years, then accepted the Chair of Pharmacology at the University of Cairo in 1934. In 1935 he was appointed Professor of Pharmacology at University College London, and in 1938 he took the Chair of Pharmacology at the College of the Pharmaceutical Society, London. After the war broke out, he worked at the Chemical Defence Research Station, Porton Down, then later was for a short time in the Army as Temporary Lieutenant-Colonel. In 1942 he accepted the Chair of Materia Medica in the University of Edinburgh, where he was happy and built up an outstanding research department which attracted many scientists from abroad. Extra-mural activities became more time-consuming and in 1958 he was invited to become the Director of the Institute of Animal Physiology in Babraham, Cambridge, by the Agricultural Research Council. He enjoyed learning new things, so accepted the post and staffed the Institute with the finest physiologists, with the result it became one of the great international centres for research in physiology and pharmacology. A year before his death he was knighted and awarded an honorary LL.D, Edinburgh. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1929 he married Iris Mary Harmer, M.B., B.Chir., M.R.C.P., daughter of Sir Sidney Harmer, FRS, a zoologist, and Laura Russell.
Sir James Hopwood Jeans was born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, on 11 September 1877, and moved to London in 1880. A precocious child, he had a passion for clocks, writing a booklet about them at the age of nine. He attended Merchant Taylor's School from 1890-1896, then entered Trinity College where he was second wrangler on the mathematical tripos in 1898. While recovering from a tubercular infection of the joints, he took a first class on part two of the tripos in 1900 and was awarded a Smith's Prize. In 1901 he was elected a fellow of Trinity College, obtaining his MA in 1903. In 1904 he published his first treatise Dynamical Theory of Gases which became a standard textbook. Two further textbooks followed while he was professor of applied mathematics at Princeton University from 1906-1909. From 1910-1912 he was Stokes lecturer in applied mathematics at Cambridge. His Report on Radiation and the Quantum Theory in 1914 helped spread acceptance of quantum theory. Until this time he had been interested in molecular physics; then he turned his attention to astronomy, working on the equilibrium of rotating masses, culminating in his Adams Prize Essay Problems of Cosmogony and Stellar Dynamics. He continued to work on astrophysical problems, producing Astronomy and Cosmogony in 1928. From 1928, he occupied himself with the popularization of science, beginning with a series of lectures which served as a source for The Universe Around Us in 1929, followed by other publications in his fluent and stimulating style, though his final books Physics and Philosophy in 1943 and The Growth of Physical Science in 1947 were more historical and restrained. In 1907 he married Charlotte Tiffany Mitchell, an American from a wealthy family, by whom he had one daughter. Charlotte died in 1934, and he subsequently married Suzanne Hock, a concert organist. They had three children. Jeans died on 16 September 1946 of coronary thrombosis. He was awarded the Order of Merit, and was Secretary of the Royal Society, 1919-1929, and Vice President, 1938-1940.
This type of record has been solicited by the Royal Society during several periods of its history. In 1723 James Jurin appealed for observations via the 'Philosophical Transactions' and from 1725 instruments were sent to foreign observers to assist in this process. The resulting papers were abstracted in the 'Philosophical Transactions' by William Derham and others, but are preserved entire in this series. The Royal Society kept its own observations for the period 1774-1843 from which date the duties were transferred to the Royal Greenwich Observatory. In the mid 19th century further impetus was given to such information gathering by the Meteorological Committee, and many of the manuscripts date from this time.
The origins of the Royal Society lie in an "invisible college" of natural philosophers who began meeting in the mid-1640s to discuss the ideas of Francis Bacon. Its official foundation date is 28 November 1660, when 12 of them met at Gresham College after a lecture by Christopher Wren, the Gresham Professor of Astronomy, and decided to found 'a Colledge for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning'. This group included Wren himself, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, Sir Robert Moray, and William, Viscount Brouncker. The Society was to meet weekly to witness experiments and discuss what we would now call scientific topics. The first Curator of Experiments was Robert Hooke. It was Moray who first told the King, Charles II, of this venture and secured his approval and encouragement. The Royal Society first appears in print in 1661, and in the second Royal Charter of 1663 the Society is referred to as 'The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge'. The Society found accommodation at Gresham College and rapidly began to acquire a library (the first book was presented in 1661) and a repository or museum of specimens of scientific interest. After the Fire of 1666 it moved for some years to Arundel House, London home of the Dukes of Norfolk. It was not until 1710, under the Presidency of Isaac Newton, that the Society acquired its own home, two houses in Crane Court, off the Strand. In 1662 the Society was permitted by Royal Charter to publish and the first two books it produced were John Evelyn's Sylva and Micrographia by Robert Hooke. In 1665, the first issue of Philosophical Transactions was edited by Henry Oldenburg, the Society's Secretary. The Society took over publication some years later and Philosophical Transactions is now the oldest scientific journal in continuous publication. From the beginning, Fellows of the Society had to be elected, although the criteria for election were vague and the vast majority of the Fellowship were not professional scientists. In 1731 a new rule established that each candidate for election had to be proposed in writing and this written certificate signed by those who supported his candidature. These certificates survive and give a glimpse of both the reasons why Fellows were elected and the contacts between Fellows. The Society moved again in 1780 to premises at Somerset House provided by the Crown, an arrangement made by Sir Joseph Banks who had become President in 1778 and was to remain so until his death in 1820. Banks was in favour of maintaining a mixture among the Fellowship of working scientists and wealthy amateurs who might become their patrons. This view grew less popular in the first half of the 19th century and in 1847 the Society decided that in future Fellows would be elected solely on the merit of their scientific work. This new professional approach meant that the Society was no longer just a learned society but also de facto an academy of scientists. The Government recognised this in 1850 by giving a grant to the Society of £1,000 to assist scientists in their research and to buy equipment. Therefore a Government Grant system was established and a close relationship began, which nonetheless still allowed the Society to maintain its autonomy, essential for scientific research. In 1857 the Society moved once more, to Burlington House in Piccadilly, with its staff of two. The Royal Society Building Over the next century the work and staff of the Society grew rapidly and soon outgrew this site. Therefore in 1967 the Society moved again to its present location on Carlton House Terrace with a staff which has now grown to over 120, all working to further the Royal Society's roles as independent scientific academy, learned society and funding body .
Marcello Malpighi was born in Crevalcore, Bologna, of Marcantonio Malpighi and Maria Cremonini. He entered the University of Bologna in 1646, where his tutor, the peripatetic philosopher Francesco Natali, suggested he study medicine. He graduated as doctor of philosphy and medicine in 1653, and from 1656 accepted the chair of theoretical medicine at Pisa, where his stay was fundamental to the formation of his science. He was influenced by Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, then Professor of Mathematics at Pisa, through whom he entered the orbit of the school of Galileo. In 1659 he returned to Bologna, where with Carlo Fracassati he continued to conduct dissections and vivisections, in the course of which he used the microscope to make fundamental discoveries about the lungs. These he communicated to Borelli. His observations not only identified a structure for the pulmonary parenchyma, but also confirmed the theory of the circulation of the blood and ensured the theory's acceptance. In 1662 he returned to Messina where he held the chair of medicine, and enthusiatically continued his researches on fundamental structures, publishing his findings in treatises relating to neurology, adenology, and hematology. He established the capillary circulation and a mechanism to explain hematosis; he defined and systematized a nervous mechanism which included a highly accute sensory receptors; and performed an analysis of the blood, discovering the red corpuscles. He studied aberrations to cast light on normal organisms, and studied simple animals to understand more complex ones. He applied his methodological formulation in his work on the silkworm in 1669, and in the later embryological and botanical works edited by the Royal Society. In 1666 he went back to Bologna, and in 1667 he agreed to undertake scientific correspondence with the Royal Society of London, and the Society subsequently supervised the printing of all his later works. His study of plants, the Anatome Planatarum, appeared in London in two parts, in 1675 and 1679, and with Nathaniel Gre earned him acclaim as the founder of the microscopic study of plant anatomy. He was Chief Physician to Pope Innocent XII, 1691-1694. In his work on medical anatomy he shaped the work of at least two generations, Albertini and Valsalva being his pupils, and their pupil Mortgagni continuing Malpighi's work. He also made considerable contributions to vegetable pathology, as in plant galls, and wrote an important methodological work supporting rational medicine against the empiricists.
Born in Dublin in 1788, Sabine was a graduate of the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. He retained his commission, eventually reaching the rank of General - but started scientific work at the end of the Napoleonic wars. He was recommended by the Royal Society to accompany John Ross on an expedition to seek the Northwest Passage in 1818, was with William Edward Parry on his 1819-1820 Arctic expedition, and on a pendulum expedition in 1821-1822 around the Atlantic to determine the true figure of the earth. He was most interested in terrestrial magnetism, in 1826 working with Babbage on the British Isles; in the 1830's he, Humphrey Lloyd, James Clark Ross and others completed the magnetic survey of the British Isles, which he repeated in 1858-1861. His career was distinguished by his successful promotion and administration of a world-wide effort to gather terrestrial magnetism observations, believing in the existence of two magnetic poles and that terrestrial magnetism was essentially the same as atmospheric phenomena. He played a key role both in the dispatching of a British expedition to the southern hemisphere in 1839 to establish a network of magnetic and meteorological observatories, and in its consequencies, motivated by intellectual curiosity and nationalistic zeal. Also, he and Sir John Herschel were in complete agreement on the desirability of seizing this opportunity to advance meteorology. Sabine took over from Lloyd the processing of the data, and between 1841-1861 he maintained a staff at Woolwich for data reduction. He also persuaded the British Association to acquire the King's Observatory at Kew to be the basic geophysical observatory for the Empire, providing standard data and equipment for colonial observations, until in 1871 it was transferred to the Royal Society. Sabine believed that data was not the end in itself, but a preliminary to theory. He was particularly active in the British Association and the Royal Society, shifting programmes from one to the other to gain his objectives, such as the Kew Observatory. He was distressed by the disputes over reforming the Royal Society, and with Grove played a leading reform role which answered the complaints of Davy and Babbage about the election of Fellows. However, he failed to move with the scientific times, in 1863 refusing the demand by younger naturalists for awarding the Copley Medal to Darwin in favour of Adam Sedgwick. Accused by Tyndall of neglecting natural history, he resigned the presidency of the Royal Society in 1871.
The Royal Observatory was founded by Charles II in 1675. Charles II appointed John Flamsteed as his first Astronomer Royal in March 1675. The Observatory was built to improve navigation at sea and 'find the so-much desired longitude of places'. This was inseparable from the accurate measurement of time, for which the Observatory became generally famous in the 19th century. The Royal Observatory is also the source of the Prime Meridian of the world, Longitude 0° 0' 0''. The Prime Meridian is defined by the position of the large 'Transit Circle' telescope in the Observatory's Meridian Building. This was built by Sir George Biddell Airy, the 7th Astronomer Royal, in 1850. The cross-hairs in the eyepiece of the Transit Circle precisely define Longitude 0º for the world. Since the late 19th century, the Prime Meridian at Greenwich has served as the co-ordinate base for the calculation of Greenwich Mean Time. The Greenwich Meridian was chosen to be the Prime Meridian of the World in 1884. In 1960, shortly after the transfer of the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO) to Herstmonceux (and later Cambridge), Flamsteed House was transferred to the National Maritime Museum's care and over the next seven years the remaining buildings on the site were also transferred and restored for Museum use. Following the closure of the RGO at Cambridge in October 1998, the site is now again known as the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.
Born, 1794; educated, Edinburgh University; commissioned in the Prince of Wales's Edinburgh volunteers, 1810; went to Barbados, 1811; appointed ensign in the York light infantry, a corps which served in the West Indies, 1813; promoted lieutenant, 1815; exchanged into the 2nd West India regiment in Jamaica; posted to Sierra Leone, 1820; captain to the Royal African Colonial Corps, 1822; two successive missions to Forecariah in the coastal country (later Guinea) north of Sierra Leone; transferred to the Gold Coast, 1823; official mission to seek the mouth of the Niger, 1824; died on the mission in 1826.
Robins was born in 1707 in Bath, showing his mathematical ability at an early age. He came to London, teaching himself modern languages and the higher mathematics to prepare himself for teaching. Without help he demonstrated Newton's 'Treatise of Quadratures', published in the Philosophical Transactions, and in 1728 published a masterly confutation of a dissertation by Jean Bernouilli on the laws of motion in bodies impinging on one another. Such fame brought him many students, and he spent some years teaching pure and applied mathematics, until he became bored and became an engineer, devoting himself to making mills, bridges, harbours and making rivers navigable. More importantly, he also studied gunnery and fortification, helped in this by his friend William Ockenden. In 1739 he wrote a number of able political pamphlets in the tory interest, which brought him to political notice, and he was appointed secretary of the committee nominated by the House of Commons to examine and report on the past conduct of Walpole. In 1741 he was unsuccessful in being appointed professor of fortification at the Royal Military Academy established at Woolwich, but in 1742 he published his best known work New Principles of Gunnery which he had begun in support of his candidacy. It was translated into German by Euler, whose critical commentary on it was translated into English, and published by the order of the Board of Ordnance with remarks by Hugh Brown of the Tower of London. The French also translated the 'New Principle' for the Academy of Science in Paris in 1751. He invented the ballistic pendulum, a device for measuring the velocity of a projectile, and communicated to the Royal Society on this and other gunnery topics, including exhibiting various experiments. In 1747 he was awarded the Copley medal. Robins' friend and patron Lord Anson, on his return from the voyage around the world in the 'Centurion', entrusted him with the task of revising his account of the voyage from the journals kept by his chaplain, Richard Walter. This led to a dispute between Robins and Walter as to who actually wrote the published work, though it seems probable it was Robins who revised and edited the work, and was especially entrusted with the second volume containing the nautical observations, which he took to India and could not be found after his death. Lord Anson enabled Robins to continue his experiments in gunnery, whose results were published in the Philosophical Transactions. In 1749 he accepted the post of engineer-general to repair the forts of the East India Company, to Lord Anson's regret, and took with him a complete set of astronomical instruments, as well as instruments for making observations and experiments. On his arrival at Madras in 1750 he designed projects for Fort St. David and the defence of Madras. Following a fever, he died at Fort St. David. His executor, Thomas Lewis, entrusted Dr James Wilson with the publication of his works, which he did in 1761, the publication becoming a text book.
Boyle was born on 25 January 1627 at Lismore, Munster, seventh son of the notorious Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork, thereby having high status and considerable wealth. His education began at home, then continued at Eton and with foreign travel from 1639. He visited France, Geneva - where he suffered a conversion experience which was to have a profound effect on him - and Italy, where he discovered the writings of Galileo. He returned to England in 1644, taking up residence at the family manor of Stalbridge, Dorset, from 1645. He visited Ireland in 1652-1653, then by 1656 moved to Oxford where he joined the circle of natural philosophers there which formed the liveliest centre of English science at that time. After the Restoration in 1660, many of them moved to London, where the Royal Society was founded (with Boyle among its founding Fellows), although Boyle did not move there until 1668, sharing a house in Pall Mall with his sister Katherine, Lady Ranelagh, until they both died in 1691. In the 1640's he became preoccupied with themes which were to continue throughout his life - vindication of an approved understanding of nature, in its own right as well as its utilitarian advantages; insistence on the importance of experiment in pursuing this aim, and the advocacy of spirituality. To these ends he became involved with other like-minded individuals known as the 'Invisible College', and subsequently the circle of intellectuals surrounding the Prussian emigré, Samuel Hartlib. He devoted his life to extensive and systematic experimentation, and to writing. His major scientific work on pneumatics, 'New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, Touching the Air and its Effects', used the air pump as the key piece of equipment used to explore the physical properties of air, vindicated the possibility of a vacuum, illustrated the extent to which life depended on air, and proved that the volume of air varies inversely with its pressure (Boyle's Law). 1661 saw the publication of the 'Sceptical Chemist' and 'Certain Physiological Essays', the beginning of a series where he sought to vindicate a mechanistic theory of matter and to remodel chemistry along new lines, and where he crucially vindicated an experimental approach. In the 1670's his publications continued the previous themes, but also included theology. In the 1680's, his interest shifted to medical matters, such as 'Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood' (1684), or the collections of recipes in his 'Medicinal Experiments' (1688-1694). At the same time, he continued his work as a Christian apologist, his 'The Christian Virtuoso' appearing in 1690. His concern about the theological implications of the new philosophy can be seen in 'Discourse of Things above Reason' (1681) and 'Disquisition about the Final Causes of Things' (1688). On his death in 1691 he endowed a Lectureship to expound the Christian message. His significance to the development of natural philosphy was recognised in his lifetime, and his influence was particularly important for Isaac Newton, the leading figure in the following generation, whose work is seen as the culmination of the scientific achievement of seventeenth-century England.
William Cribb was a dresser to George Martin, Surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital, 1778.
Joseph Else was Surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital, London from 1768 to 1780. He was appointed Lecturer in Anatomy and Surgery in 1768 on the unification of the medical schools of St Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals.
Publications: An essay on the cure of the hydrocele of the tunica vaginalis testis (London, 1770); The works of ... J. E., ... containing a treatise on the hydrocele, and other papers on different subjects in surgery. To which is added, an appendix, containing some cases of hydrocele ... by G Vaux (London, 1782); [An account of a successful method of treating sore legs.] Méthode avantageuse de traiter les ulcères des jambes in [Surgical tracts, containing a treatise upon ulcers of the legs.] Traité sur les ulcères des jambes, etc by Michael Underwood MD pp 217-228 (1744 [1784]).
Born, Bakewll, Derbyshire, 1733; educated at Bakewell grammar school; studied medicine at St George's Hospital, London from 1853; surgeon's mate in the navy, surgeon, 1757; attached to the ship Edgar to 1763; continued his medical studies, attending the lectures on midwifery of Dr Smellie; graduated MD, Aberdeen, 1764; began practice as a physician, Winchester; surgeon to a royal yacht; lectured on midwifery, and continued to do so for fifteen years; physician accoucheur to the Middlesex Hospital, 1769-1783; licentiate in midwifery, College of Physicians, 1783; moved to Feltham, Middlesex, 1791 and reduced his practice; made the practice of inducing premature labour in cases of narrow pelvis and other conditions general in England; died, London, 1815.
Publications include: Essays on the Puerperal Fever, and on puerperal convulsions (J Walter, London, 1768); A Letter to Dr. Richard Huck, on the construction and method of using vapor baths [London, 1768]; Aphorisms, respecting the distinction and management of preternatural presentations [London, c 1780]; Directions for the application of the forceps [London, c 1780]; An Essay on Uterine Hemorrhages depending on Pregnancy and Parturition (J Johnson, London, 1785); An Essay on Difficult Labours (J. Johnson, London, 1787-1791); An Essay on Natural Labours (J Johnson, [London,] 1786); An Essay on Preternatural Labours (J Johnson, London, 1786); A Collection of Engravings, tending to illustrate the generation and parturition of animals, and of the human species (J Johnson, London, 1787); An Introduction to the Practice of Midwifery (J Johnson, London, 1794, 95); Observations on the Cure of Cancer (J Johnson, London, 1810).
Born, London, 1791; educated, private pupil of the rector of St Saviour's, Southwark, Edinburgh, Jesus College, Cambridge; pupil, St Thomas's and Guy's Hospital; assistant, Guy's Hospital, for five years; graduated, MD, 1821; Professor of the Practice of Medicine, University of London, 1831; helped establish University College Hospital; Lumleian lecturer, 1829; Professor of Clinical Medicine, University of London, 1831; first physician in Britain to use the stethoscope; founder and first president of the Phrenological Society; President, Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, [1837]; studied mesmerism, and held séances; the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London banned mesmerism and his interest compelled to resign his professorship, 1838, and membership of the Society; Harveian orator, 1846; established a mesmeric hospital, 1849; founded his own journal, The Zoist, to publish reports of mesmeric phenomena; died, 1868.
Publications include: Dissertatio ... de inflammatione communi, etc. (Edinburgh 1810); Numerous cases illustrative of the efficacy of ... Prussic Acid in affections of the Stomach; with a report upon its powers in Pectoral and other Diseases in which it has been already recommended; and some facts respecting ... the use of Opium in Diabetes (London, 1820); The introductory lecture of a course upon state- medicine. delivered in Mr Grainger's theatre, Southwark, on Thursday, November the first (Printed by T Bensley, London, 1821); The Institutions of Physiology ... Translated from the Latin of the third and last edition, and supplied with numerous and extensive notes, by John Elliotson ... Second edition Fourth edition by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (Longman & Co, London, 1828); On the recent improvements in the art of distinguishing the diseases of the Heart, being the Lumleyan lectures delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, in the year 1829 (London, 1830); Address delivered at the opening of the Medical Session in the University of London, Oct. 1st 1832 (London, 1832); The Principles and practice of Medicine: ... in a course of Lectures, delivered at University College, London (London, 1839); Lectures on the theory and practice of Medicine, delivered in University College, London Edited by J C Cooke, and T G Thompson (London, 1839); Numerous cases of surgical operations without pain in the mesmeric state; with remarks upon the opposition of many members of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society and others (London, 1843); The Harveian oration, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, London, June 27th, 1846 (H Baillière, London, 1846); Mesmerism in India, and its Practical Application in Surgery and Medicine (Esdaile, 1846/1977); Cure of a true cancer of the female breast with mesmerism Extracted from the last number of "The Zoist" (No. XXIII.) (London, 1848); The Zoist: a journal of cerebral physiology and mesmerism Editor 13 volumes (London, 1843-1856); John Elliotson on mesmerism edited by Fred Kaplan (Da Capo Press, New York, 1982).
George Fordyce: born, Aberdeen, 1736; educated, school at Fouran, University of Aberdeen; trained with his uncle, Dr John Fordyce of Uppingham, physician, [1751-1755]; medical student, University of Edinburgh; MD, 1758; studied anatomy at Leyden under Albinus, 1759; began a course of lectures on chemistry in London, 1759; added courses on materia medica and the practice of physic, 1764, and continued to teach for nearly thirty years; licentiate of the College of Physicians, 1765; Physician, St Thomas's Hospital, 1770-1802; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1776; 'speciali gratia' fellow of the College of Physicians, 1787; assisted in the compilation of the new Pharmacopeia Londinensis, issued 1788; assisted in forming a Society for the Improvement of Medical and Chirurgical Knowledge, 1793; died, 1802.
Publications include: Elements of Agriculture and Vegetation [Edinburgh, 1765]; Elements of the Practice of Physic third edition (J Johnson, London, 1771); A Treatise on the digestion of food (London, 1791); A Dissertation on Simple Fever, or on fever consisting of one paroxysm only (J Johnson, London, 1794); A second dissertation on fever; containing the history and method of treatment of a regular tertian intermittent (London, 1795); A third dissertation on fever Containing the history and method of treatment of a regular continued fever, supposing it is left to pursue its ordinary course (London, 1798-1799); A Fourth Dissertation on Fever. Containing the history of, and remedies to be employed in irregular intermitting fevers (J. Johnson, London, 1802); A fifth dissertation on fever, containing the history of, and remedies to be employed in, irregular continued fevers Edited by W C Wells (J Johnson, London, 1803).
Born 7 January 1871, the son of Albert Horder, of Shaftesbury. He was educated privately, and at the University of London and St Bartholomew's Hospital, London.
Horder served as Captain (temp. Major) Royal Army Medical Corps; Adviser to Minister of Food and President of Food Education Society; Chairman of Committee advising Ministry of Labour and National Service on medical questions connected with Recruiting; Chairman of Shelter Hygiene Committee of Ministry of Home Security and Ministry of Health; Hon. Consulting Physician to Ministry of Pensions; Consulting Physician Cancer Hospital, Fulham; President, Harveian Society of London; Chairman of British Empire Cancer Campaign and Chairman Advisory Scientific Committee; Chairman of Advisory Committee, Mount Vernon Hospital; President of Fellowship of Medicine; Consulting Physician to the Royal Orthopædic Hospital, to the Royal Northern Hospital and to the Hospitals of Bury St Edmunds, Swindon, Bishop's Stortford, Leatherhead, Beckenham and Finchley. He was also a member of numerous associations and committees.
He was awarded GCVO, 1938; (KCVO, 1925); Kt, 1918; MD; BSc; Hon. DCL (Dunelm.); Hon. MD (Melbourne and Adelaide); FRCP. In 1923 he was created Thomas Jeeves Horder, Baronet of Shaston; in 1933 created, 1st Baron Horder, of Ashford in the County of Southampton.
He also held the positions of Deputy Lieutenant County of Hampshire; Extra Physician to the Queen (formerly Extra Physician to King George VI); and Consulting Physician to St Bartholomew's Hospital.
In 1902 Horder married Geraldine Rose Doggett (died 1954), of Newnham Manor, Hertfordshire. He died 13 August 1955.
Publications
Clinical Pathology in Practice; with a short account of Vaccine-Therapy, Oxford Medical Publications. 1907; Cerebro-spinal Fever, Oxford War Primers 1915; Medical Notes, London, 1921; A Preliminary Communication concerning the "Electronic Reactions" of Abrams with special reference to the "Emanometer" Technique of Boyd. Read before ... the Sections of Medicine and Electro-Therapeutics of the Royal Society of Medicine by Sir T. Horder on behalf of M. D. Hart, C. B. Heald, etc. J. Bale & Co, London, 1925; with A E Gow, The Essentials of Medical Diagnosis, Cassell & Co, London, 1928; Obscurantism, Watts & Co, London, 1938; Health & a Day. Addresses, J. M. Dent & Sons: London, 1937; Rheumatism. Notes on its causes, its incidence and its prevention; with a plan for national action in collaboration with the Empire Rheumatism Council, H. K. Lewis & Co, London, [1941]; Fifty Years of Medicine. [An expanded version of three Harben lectures delivered at the Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene, 1952.], Gerald Duckworth & Co, London, 1953; with Sir Charles Dodds and T Moran, Bread. The chemistry and nutrition of flour and bread, with an introduction to their history and technology, Constable, London, 1954.
John Rudd Leeson was born in London, 6 Jan 1854, the son of John Leeson. He was educated at St Thomas's Hospital, Edinburgh, Vienna, and Berlin Universities, obtaining MD, CM, (Edinburgh) and MRCS (England). In Edinburgh, he was Dresser and House Surgeon to Professor Joseph Lister. Leeson served as House Physician, 1876, and Demonstrator or Anatomy, 1878, St Thomas's Hospital; Senior Consultant Physician and Chairman St John's Hospital, Twickenham; and Consultant Physician Metropolitan and City Police Orphanage. He married firstly Margaret Lewis, and secondly Caroline Gwatkin.
Spencer Leeson, Bishop of Peterborough, (1892-1956) was the son of John Rudd Leeson.