The Irish born physician and the British Museum
You may have seen our Tweet
(@RCPIArchive) last week marking the 255th anniversary of the
British Museum. This is an extremely influential
institution as it was the first national public museum in the world, opening
its doors on 15th January 1759. In 2013, the Museum had its most
successful year welcoming 6,701,036 visitors through its doors.
As the British Medical Journal
commented in 1905, ‘Does the British
public, or even the medical profession, fully realise that the nation owes that
magnificent institution, the British Museum, to the liberality of a doctor?’
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| Sir Hans Sloane |
It is of course very interesting to us
that the British Museum was based on the collection of a physician, but what is
even more fascinating, is that this doctor, Sir Hans Sloane, was born in Co.
Down in 1660.
Due to his connection to Ireland, Sir
Hans Sloane, features in our very unique resource the Kirkpatrick Index. The
Index is a one-of-a-kind collection of newspaper cuttings, articles and
manuscript notes relating to Irish born doctors, put together by Thomas Percy
Claude Kirkpatrick (1869-1954) as a resource for those interested in Irish
medics. It features approximately 10,000
names of doctors from around 1650 up to the 1950s.
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| Cartoon from the Sunday Dispatch |
Sir Hans Sloane’s file contains
various printed accounts of his life and his connection with the British
Museum, two of which are printed in the British Medical Journal. It contains a likeness of him in cartoon from
the Sunday Dispatch, where he is named as the first doctor to be knighted. It also contains an account of Hans Sloane’s
family tree from his father and mother, Alexander Sloane and Sarah Hicks, down
to his nephew and namesake Sir Hans Sloane MP (1739-1837). In addition to this there is a letter from
this nephew to a friend which refers to his marriage to Sarah Fuller on the 24th
of June 1772.
Sir Hans Sloane was born in Back
Street, Killyleagh, Co. Down on the 16th of April, 1660. According to written accounts he was ‘delicate in his youth’ and spent a great
deal of time studying medicine, chemistry and natural science. He went from Ireland to London and then to
Paris. On returning to London, in 1684,
he came under the influence of the prominent physician Thomas Sydenham. He also became a Fellow of the Royal Society
and the College of Physicians. However, this was not the end of his travels; in
1687, Sloane travelled to Jamaica as physician to the Duke of Albemarle who was
then Governor of the island and it was during this time that he really began
his pursuit of collecting. He took a
great interest in the local flora, fauna, and made other cultural and
geographical observations. He also
collected specimens and plants to bring with him on his return to London. These travels and the notes he took led to his
most famous work Catalogus plantarum quae
in insula Jamacia sponte proveniunt aut vulgo coluntur which was published
in London in 1696.
Sloane became a very influential
individual in his lifetime, holding the Presidency of the Royal Society and the
Presidency of the College of Physicians in London. His interest in collecting was very well known
and he was bequeathed quite a substantial collection by William Courten, a
naturalist and also received the collection of James Peltiver, a London
apothecary. By the time of his death in
1753, he had amassed a collection of over 71,000 objects.
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| The British Museum |
According to the British Museum website, ‘in his will,
Sloane bequeathed the whole collection to King George II for the nation in
return for payment of £20,000 to his heirs. Parliament accepted the gift and on 7 June
1753 an Act of Parliament establishing the British Museum received the royal
assent. Sloane’s collection became the
foundation of the British Museum.’
Along with the items in the
Kirkpatrick Index, Dun’s Library holds a copy of Catalogus plantarum quae in insula Jamacia sponte proveniunt aut vulgo
coluntur from 1696, and a fourth edition copy of Slone’s only medical book
An account of a most efficacious
medicine for soreness, weakness, and several other distempers of the eyes, published in Dublin in 1762.
By Sarah Kennedy
Library Intern