Sir Dominic Corrigan
Having finished the Saint Ultan’s and Kathleen Lynn collections, the next collection on my list to be catalogued are the papers of Sir Dominic Corrigan (1802-1880).
Born in 1802 the son of a dealer in agricultural tools Corrigan rose to be the first Catholic President of the King and Queen’s College of Physicians of Ireland (the name of the College at the time), despite his membership having been blocked by the College ten years earlier. He was also Physician in Ordinary in Ireland to Queen Victoria, and was given a baronetcy for his services to medicine. A supporter of non-denominational education he served as a senator to Queen’s University of Ireland, and accepted the vice-chancellorship in 1871. Vocal in his opinions on legislation relating to the medical profession, he was elected MP for Dublin in 1870, although his support of Sunday closing of pubs was not popular with his constituents and he did not seek re-election. As well as his high profile public career Corrigan carried on a successful private practice from his house on Merrion Square, during the 1860s his practice earned him over £4,000 a year. In modern terms this is equivalent to £282,000 using the retail price index, or over £3 million pounds as a share of per capita GDP.[1] Corrigan’s flourishing private practice allowed him to give his time to several Dublin hospitals, he accepted posts at the Meath Dispensary, Cork Street Fever Hospital, and the Charitable Infirmary in Jervis Street, and he also lectured at several medical schools.
The papers in the Corrigan collection cover both his medical and political career, and as such offer a fascinating insight into both the medical and political situation in Ireland at the time. In terms of his medical career the collection contains Corrigan’s fee and cases books, scripts for series of lectures given in medical schools and correspondence relating to applications for, and appointment to, posts. The collection also contains Corrigan’s diaries for the years 1874-1879 as well as his correspondence on medical and political issues, with many of the leading political figures of the day including W E Gladstone and John Bright. The collection is completed with a small collection of personal and family papers including photographs and some poems written by Corrigan.
Page from Sir Dominic Corrigan’s Fee Book for December 1866.
This page showing Corrigan’s daily income for December 1866, when combined with the number of patients he visited, recorded in the observations column, it can be seen that Corrigan charged £1 for each consultation, the standard fee at the time.[2] At the bottom of the page Corrigan records his yearly income, in this case £4831.10, with the majority (£4,737) coming from his private practice. Corrigan used the observation column of the book to records details of his patients, but he also noted down events in his own life in this case that he saw no patients after the 19 December as he was ‘confined to bed by gout to 31st instance’
[1] http://www.measuringworth.com/
[2] Tony Farmar Patients, Potions & Physicians. A social history of Medicine in Ireland, pp.88-90