Archive item of the month: Certificate of character of Thomas Abraham
On 5th July 1708 Sir Patrick Dun, wrote a signed a certificate of character for one Thomas Abraham.
The certificate attests that Patrick Dun has personally known Thomas Abraham since 1702 and that:
'to this daye I never heard anything to the contrary of his living [curiously] and honestly among his neighbours'. Dun goes on to state that 'I know nothing to the contrary of his being a Protestant'
This would have been an important fact at the time, as Ireland was still recovering from the religious tensions of the Jacobite rising and Williamite Wars, when oaths of allegiance and against transubstantiation were required of all those holding public office.
It is unclear who Thomas Abraham was, but given that the certificate was presented to RCPI by the King's Hospital, it seems possible that Abraham was applying for some position there. The Hospital and Free School of King Charles II was founded in Dublin in 1669, educating Protestant children in Dublin. The signing of the certificate by Dun suggests that he was an influential member of the Protestant Ascendancy class in Dublin at the time.
RCPI's interest in the certificate, stems from the fact that it is one of the few original documents we have relating to Sir Patrick Dun, who was one of the most influential of the early College Presidents. Dun's signature appears regularly in the first minute books of the College from 1692 until his death in 1713, but this is the only document written entirely in Dun's hand.
Dun's signature can also be found in the College library on the title page of a 1687 edition of Marcello Malpighi's Opera Omnia, this allows us to identify this books as one of Dun's original bequest to the library, the only volume which can be positively identified as having personally belonged to Dun.