What's in a name (of a College of Physicians)?!
Using a consistent name to refer to
the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland over the course of its history is a
problem. The reason? Since its foundation, the College has operated under four different titles.
The origins of the College are in the Fraternity of Physicians of Trinity Hall, founded by Dr John Stearne in 1654. Thirteen years later a Royal Charter was granted which changed the name to the College of Physicians of Dublin, with Stearne as the first President.
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Full copy of the Dr Foy's letter to the
Evening Telegraph (TPCK/6/5/16).
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A second Royal Charter, granted in 1692, provided for yet another name change, this time to the King and Queen’s College of Physicians in Ireland. The new title honoured the contemporary co-regent monarchs, King William III and Queen Mary II, and reflected the extension of the College’s power to grant licences over the whole kingdom of Ireland.
The
name King and Queen’s College of Physicians remained in place until 1890, when
a supplemental charter changed the name of the College to its present form, the
Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.
This final name change was not
universally popular. Amongst the staunchest of critics to the new title was Dr
George Mahood Foy (1847-1934), a surgeon at Whitworth Hospital, Dublin, and a Fellow
of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
In a letter printed in the Evening Telegraph on 23 August 1890, Dr
Foy bemoaned the adoption of the new ‘stereotyped
title’. While the old title had been ‘associated
with the names of Graves, Stokes, Corrigan, and other distinguished physicians’,
the new Royal title was ‘shared with
aerated waters, friendly societies, and tinned meats, so that a member of the
Physicians, like a Columbian tinned lobster, is now entitled to be styled “Royal”’.
I’m not sure if the current members
of RCPI would approve of such a description! Nowadays the Heritage Centre
prefers to use ‘the College’ when referring to the history of the institution.
It’s less controversial!
Fergus Brady,
Project Archivist