Dufferin Chronicles

Sir Hans Sloane

Best known as President of the Royal Society in succession to Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Hans Sloane was physician to Queen Anne and had a life-long interest in natural history. His collections and those of Harley were combined to form the nucleus of the British Museum. In London he was considered a fashionable doctor but he was also a benefactor of the poor. In his "Memoir of Sir Hans Sloane" Dr Thomas Birch said of him that "he would sometimes reflect on his past life with a satisfaction that might be read in his countenance whilst he declared that, during his whole practice, he had never denied his advice to the poor, had never refused going to any who sent for him, or on any occasion neglected his patient, or omitted to do the utmost in his power for him".

Hans Sloane was born in Killyleagh, April 16, 1660, but unfortunately little is known of his early years there. His father was Alexander Sloane of Killyleagh, receiver general of taxes from County Down, a landholder in Lisnagh in 1659 and father of two other sons, James and William. The mother of the boys was Sarah Hicks Sloane, daughter of William Hicks, Canon of Chichester from 1632 to 1637. Alexander died in 1666 when Hans was only six years old. In 1671 Sarah married John Bailie of Inishargy who had succeeded Alexander Sloane as agent of the Clandeboye estates. They had one daughter, Alice, who married John Elsmere.

There is little doubt that the three Sloane boys received their early education in Killyleagh at a school provided by James Hamilton for his settler's children. It is believed, and is in some cases documented, that the Sloanes and Hamiltons were related and this would explain in part how the Sloane boys got a favourable start in life. James became a prominent lawyer, William a merchant and Hans an eminent physician. Hans early became interested in botany, and Killyleagh on the shores of Strangford Lough was well situated for the study of plants and other nature studies.

Hans's interest in natural history and science led him to his career in medicine. However, at the age of sixteen he suffered an illness much like that of tuberculosis that left him an invalid for three years. At the age of nineteen he studied medicine in London. Four years later in 1683 he went to Paris and attended lectures by prominent professors of botany, chemistry and anatomy at La Charité hospital. When he left Paris he had to hunt for a university that would accept him, a protestant, as the universities in France at that time accepted only catholics to be their graduates

Upon the advice of a Dutch friend he enrolled at the University of Orange in the south of France where he received the degree of doctor of medicine in 1683.

From Orange Hans went to Montpelier for further studies in anatomy and botany. After about a year there he returned to Paris and eventually to London where Dr Thomas Sydenham, one of the most eminent physicians of the day, took and interest in him and taught him good bedside manner. Sloane continued with his medical practice in London for the next three years. At the age of twenty-five he was elected Fellow of the College of Physicians. It is clear from his extensive correspondence with John Ray, the naturalist, that Sloane continued his intense interest in the natural history of plants.

In September 1687 Sloane accompanied the Duke of Albemarle to Jamaica as his physician. Twenty years after this journey he published the first volume of his book "Natural History of Jamaica" which he dedicated to Queen Anne. Seventeen years later he dedicated the second volume to King George I. W.W.D Thomson, Professor of Medicine at Queen's University, summarised the two-volume work as "the story of his voyage and adventures, the life and habits of the settlers in the West Indies, the medical cases he say and treated and his exploration of the island and a full description of the plants which he collected there". After the Duke of Albemarle's death in 1688 Sloane accompanied the Duchess back to London. She appointed him her domestic physician and introduced him to fashionable society. He was chosen to Christ's Hospital which provided home and education for 400 orphans. He retired from the hospital in 1730.

In 1695 he married Elizabeth Langley Rose, a daughter and co-heiress of John Langley, a wealthy alderman of the city of London and widow of Fulk Rose, a sugar-planter in Jamaica. Elizabeth had four daughters by Rose and four children by Sloane. Hans and Mary died in infancy. Sarah married George Stanley and Elizabeth married Charles Cadogen. In 1697 Sloane and his wife lived in a house in Bloomsbury Square, London, where Mrs Sloane died in 1724. In order to provide more room for his ever increasing collections he took up residence in 1742 in the Manor House, Chelsea, which he had purchased some years earlier. This area was familiar to him because of the Apothecaries' Garden where he had worked as a young man. His brother William, Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton also lived in Chelsea.

On the 11th January 1753 Sir Hans Sloane died at the age of 93. he and his wife are buried in the churchyard of Chelsea Old Church. The terms of his will greatly assisted the foundation of the British Museum. The History of the British Museum states that it "was founded by Act of Parliament in 1753 to bring together the collections of Sir Robert Cotton, which were already national property and those formed by the two Harleys, first and second Earls of Oxford, and by Sir Hans Sloane; both collections were on offer to the nation for sale on favourable terms. Under the terms of the Act, which closely followed lines laid down in the will of Sir Hans Sloane, a government lottery was held to provide a building to house all these collections and future additions to them and to pay for the Sloane and Harley collections".

Sloane had begun with collections of plants, birds, beasts, insects and geological specimens but eventually he included objects of art and antiquity, coins, manuscripts and countless curiosities numbering, it is said, over 79,000 objects excluding the plants in his famous herb garden.

Among the many honours which came to Sir Hans, some are worth mentioning as illustrations of his reputation and standing as a physician and as a man held in high esteem by the most eminent men of his time.

In 1712 he was appointed physician to Queen Anne; he had attended her consort, Prince George of Denmark, in his last illness. Sloane and others reportedly signed the Queen's death certificate. In 1716 he was appointed Physician-General to the Army, and in the same year George I conferred on him a baronetcy. Sir Hans was elected President of the Royal Society in 1727 as successor to Sir Isaac Newton, holding this important position until his retirement in 1741. Of Sir Han's associates Professor Thomson says, "It is doubtful if any country or age can show such a galaxy of talent as the band of scientific workers then in England: John Ray in botany, Robert Boyle in chemistry, Sir Isaac Newton in mathematics, Thomas Sydenham in medicine, Christopher Wren in architecture and John Locke in philosophy".

Killyleagh can well be proud of Sir Hans Sloane.

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