John Coakley Lettsom ( 1744 - 1815 )

Birth: Little Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands, Greater Antilles, North and Central America (22 November 1744) Death: His house, Sambrook Court, Basinghall Street, London, England, United Kingdom (01 November 1815) Burial: The Friends' Burying-ground, Coleman Street, Bunhill Row, London, England, United Kingdom Profession: Physician; author; philanthropist; abolitionist Research field: Medicine; natural history; agriculture Education: Born in a Quaker colony in the Britsh Virgin Islands and sent to school in Lancashire, England age 6; apprenticeship to Yorkshire apothecary and surgeon Abraham Sutcliff (1761-1766); University of Edinburgh (1768); Leyden University, MD (1769); licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians (1770) though excluded from Fellowship as a Quaker Career: Practiced medicine on Tortola, British Virgin Islands (1767); son of a plantation and slave owner, became an abolitionist and freed the enslaved people he inherited on his father's death (1767); set up a successful medical practice at Basinghall Street, London (from about 1770); wrote for the Gentleman's Magazine under the name of "Mottles"; wrote his medical thesis on the undesirable effects of tea drinking; founder of the Medical Society of London (1773); founder of the General Dispensary; built Grove Hill House, botaical gardens, museum, library and greenhouses in Camberwell (1779), later sold; helped establish the Royal Sea-bathing Infirmary at Margate (1791), for rehabilitation of tuberculous patients; physician to the Camberwell volunteer infantry (1803); wrote on a wide number of subjects including social commentary, education, nutrition and bee keeping as well as medicine; supporter of mass inoculation for smallpox and aided in the foundation of the Society for General Inoculation; involved in the introduction of the mangel-wurzel into agricultural cultivation; predeceased by his son Pickering Lettsom and inherited the fortune his son made in the West Indies shortly before his own death Memberships: FSA (1770); Medical Society of London (founder member 1773, President 1775-1776, 1784-1785, 1808-1811 and 1813-1815); Royal Humane Society (founder member 1774); Royal Jennerian Society (for vaccination); Philosophical Society of London (President 1812); American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1788) Membership: Fellow Election Date: 18/11/1773.