Rumsey , Henry Nathaniel , fl 1785-1787 , surgeon Clift , William , 1775-1849 , museum curator and scientific illustrator

Rumsey , Henry Nathaniel , fl 1785-1787 , surgeon Clift , William , 1775-1849 , museum curator and scientific illustrator

William Cumberland Cruikshank was born in Edinburgh in 1745. He attended both Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities and graduated in 1767. He was the pupil of John Moore, and became assistant to William Hunter. He moved to London in 1771, and gave anatomy demonstrations. He was later made a partner in the Windmill Street School by Hunter, and after Hunter died Cruikshank continued with Hunter's nephew, Matthew Baillie. Cruikshank attended Dr Johnson during his last illness. He received an honorary MD from Glasgow University in 1783. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1797. He published The Anatomy of the Absorbing Vessels of the Human Body, in 1786. He died in 1800.

Henry Nathaniel Rumsey was a surgeon in Chesham, Buckinghamshire. He took shorthand notes of John Hunter's lectures in 1786-1787, which were subsequently printed by James F Palmer in his edition of Hunter's works.

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.