Harriet Wheelock / Wednesday 11 May 2011

The historical links between Trinity and RCPI

As Trinity College Dublin are currently celebrating the 300th anniversary of their medical school it seems a good time to look at the historical links between Trinity and the College of Physicians. The two institutions have been linked since the foundation in 1654 of the Fraternity of Physicians of Trinity Hall by John Stearne, a Trinity Professor.

VM/1/S/31 - John Stearne

Trinity Hall comprised a building and a piece of land on College Green given to Trinity College in 1616 by Dublin Corporation to be used as a Free School or Hall of Residence. By 1654 the building had not been in use for over eleven years, and Trinity College were unable to afford the repairs needed. Stearne objected to the College's proposal to lease the building to two Dublin citizens. Instead Stearne suggested that he would pay from 'his own purse above a hundred pounds in repairing the said Hall, and procured disbursements from others for accommodating Physicians with a convenient place to meet in, in order to the erection of a College of Physicians'. Following the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Stearne's Fraternity was given Royal recognition in a charter of 1667 which established it as the College of Physicians in Dublin, and Trinity Hall was vested in two trustees for the use of the College of Physicians. The aim of Stearne's College was, as it is today, the regulation of the medical profession and improvement of medical standards.

RCPI 37 - Sir Patrick Dun

The close early connections between Trinity College and the College of Physicians were broken in 1692, when Sir Patrick Dun, as President of the College of Physicians, successfully petitioned King William and Queen Mary for a second royal charter. Disharmony between the two colleges had been growing during the 1680s, especially when Trinity exercised their right to block the appointment of Dr Crosby as President of the College. Although the reason they gave was a technicality over the proper notification, the real issue seems to have been Crosby's catholic religion.

RCPI/1/1/2 - Royal Charter of 1692

The 1692 charter split the physicians from Trinity College, creating the independent King and Queen's College of Physicians of Ireland. Under this second charter the College of Physicians lost the use of Trinity Hall, and would remain a peripatetic College for over 150 years, until 1864 when they finally moved into their permanent home on Kildare Street.

Although Sir Patrick Dun may have severed one link between the two Colleges, he created another. Dun died in 1713 and under his will left his money and estates in Trust to the College of Physicians for the establishment of a King's Professor of Physic in the City of Dublin, an attempt to create a medical school completely separate from Trinity College.

RCPI 8 - Dr Robert Perceval

RCPI 28 - Dr Edward Hill

During the eighteenth century, as the income from the Dun's estate increased, questions were asked of the College relating to the expenditure of the monies. The feeling being too much was going on good food and wines, and not enough on improvements in medical education. A dispute arose in the medical professions as to the best use of Dun's money. Dr Robert Perceval, Professor of Chemistry in Trinity, believed in the importance of clinical lectures and wanted the Dun's estate to fund a clinical teaching hospital. On the other side Dr Edward Hill, Professor of Botany and Regius Professor of Physic at Trinity, was anxious that a botanical garden be established, which he believed would be of much greater use. Eventually, after much political manoeuvring, financial investigations, and some false starts, Dr Perceval was successful and the School of Physic Act (1800) established a clinical teaching hospital.

VM/1/4/27 - Nineteenth century engraving of Dun's Hospital

Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital opened in 1808 on Grand Canal Street, and both the King's Professors and University Professors would give clinical lectures at the hospital as part of the Dublin School of Physic. A situation which continued until the winding up of the Dun's estate in 1961, when the remaining money was split between these hospital, Trinity and RCPI.