The Provenance of the Hunter Chair and the Goodsir Family Connection

On 21 April 1883, to mark the tercentenary anniversary of the founding of the University of Edinburgh the following year, Dr. Robert Anstruther Goodsir presented “a chair and desk which belonged to John Hunter to the museum of the university.”[1] The historical significance of these pieces of furniture is associated with the life and times of one of Scotland's most distinguished 18th-century surgeons and scientists, Dr. John Hunter.  This work will trace the provenance and associations of Dr. Hunter's chair and desk, known as a secretaire, with its attached glazed door bookcase, up to their final possession by the Goodsir family of Edinburgh.  

Housed in the Centre for Research Collections in the University of Edinburgh are various documents written in the hand of Dr. Robert Anstruther Goodsir which give further information as to the provenance of the Hunter chair and desk.  These objects' stories are both fascinating and provide interesting glimpses into the lives of the persons and families who once owned and cherished them. 

Fig.1. The Hunter Chair at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh Museum, Photograph Courtesy of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh

After donating the Hunter chair and desk to the University of Edinburgh, the globe-trotting Dr. Robert A. Goodsir, thereafter known as the “Lion of the Seasons,” published a short account entitled, Only an Old Chair:  its story as taken down in choice shorthand and done into English (1884). This rather fanciful tale recounts the chair's history as related by the chair itself, in the first person!  Consequently, Goodsir wrote, “The wood of which I am made was brought over the sea in rough logs by the great Captain Cook and Mr Joseph Banks in the year seventeen hundred and seventy-one, from a far away savage country called New Holland.  It was given by them to Mr John Hunter, who thought he could not do better with it than have it made into drawing-room chairs for his young wife Mrs Anne.”[2]

The Beginnings:  From Cook to Dr. John Hunter (1728-93)

Captain James Cook (1728-79), the celebrated Royal Navy explorer and navigator, began his first voyage in 1768, and while exploring the coastline of New Holland (Australia) collected wood during the voyage in 1771.[3] This wood was brought back home to England and presented to Dr. John Hunter (1728-93) by Dr. Daniel Solander (1733-82), the Naturalist to the expedition.[4]

Dr. Hunter commissioned the manufacture of the following from Solander's gift: twelve drawing-room chairs; a mahogany escritoire; a glass bookcase of the kind commonly called Chippendale; a library chair; a four-post bedstead and gave these furniture pieces to his wife Anne Home Hunter.[5] The furniture was in the Hunter residence in Leicester Square, London until the esteemed surgeon’s death.  Anne Home Hunter (1742-1821) was a salonnière and poet in Georgian London and is mostly remembered for writing the texts to at least nine of Franz Joseph Haydn’s fourteen songs in English.[6]

Dr. John Hunter, the father of scientific surgery, was an early advocate of careful observation and scientific methods in medicine and is considered by many as one of the most distinguished scientists and surgeons of his era.  Hunter learned anatomy by assisting his brother, William, with dissections in his anatomy school in central London and later became an expert in anatomy.  Hunter’s accomplishments were many and he was also a pioneer of the smallpox vaccine along with Edward Jenner (1749-1823).  He helped transform surgery from a manual craft to experimental science, and his extensive studies on inflammation were considered revolutionary.  He wrote important works on teeth, founded the Hunterian Museum, performed innovative techniques for treating aneurysms, and was an outstanding orthopaedic surgeon.  After he died in 1793, his widow was forced to sell some of the household furniture.[7] His remains were placed in the vaults of the church of St. Martin’s-in-the-Field’s.  They would lie there until 1859 when they were discovered.  John Hunter was re-buried in Westminster Abbey on 28 March 1859.

Fig.2. The esteemed Dr. John Hunter, painted by John Jackson in 1813, after an original by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who exhibited his painting at the Royal Academy in 1786, Photograph Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection

Sir Everard Home (1756-1832)

Everard Home after being educated at Westminster School gained a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, but decided instead to become a pupil of his brother-in-law, John Hunter, at St. George’s Hospital.[8] He assisted Hunter in many of his anatomical dissections and later became Sergeant Surgeon to the King and Surgeon at Chelsea Hospital.[9]Upon the death of Dr. John Hunter in 1793, Sir Everard acquired the chairs and other pieces of furniture and in 1821, sold the chairs and book-case to William Clift.[10] Two years later, Everard Home destroyed most of John Hunter’s papers and manuscripts for reasons that remain unclear.  Sir Everard Home published many valuable works among them were “Lectures on Comparative Anatomy,” which are explained the preparations in the Hunterian Collection, and “Hunterian Oration,” in honour of surgery.[11] Home died on 31 August 1832 at the age of 77 in his apartments at Chelsea Hospital.[12]

William Clift (1775-1849)

William Clift was a noted British illustrator and is considered the first 'Conservator,' or curator, of the Hunterian Museum in London.  After Hunter’s death, he was responsible for the safety of the Hunter collections and ultimately copied and preserved over half of Hunter’s manuscripts that otherwise would have perished.[13] It is more than likely that Clift and John Goodsir knew each other, as both were museum conservators.  Clift’s only daughter, Caroline Amelia, married Professor (later Sir Richard) Owen (1804-12) the eminent biologist, anatomist, naturalist and palaeontologist.  Clift never parted with any of Hunter’s furniture pieces and died on 20 June 1849 at the age of 74.[14]

On 3 August 1849, a public auction was held concerning Clift’s late effects which stated “Effects of the late Wm. Clift, esq., F.R.S., Conservator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, at his late residence, Stanhope Cottage, no. 79 Mornington Road, Regent’s Park: a catalogue of the valuable library, consisting of upwards of 1,000 volumes, in science and literature, both ancient & modern, of the above-named gentleman, whose judgment was so justly esteemed: many exquisite drawings, plates, & books of plates, both coloured & plain, mad eand [sic. made and] collected with great care at most advantageous opportunities: also the household furniture, and effects, will be sold by auction, by Messrs. Arrowsmith & Co., on the premises, no. 79 Mornington Road, Regent’s Park, on Friday, August the 3rd, 1849, and following day at 12 o’clock each day.”[15] John Thomas Quekett (1815-61) then an Assistant Conservator of the RCSEng and Thomas Madden Stone (1838-82) an Assistant Librarian of the RCSEng had formed a company, trading as “Quekett and Stone,” which purchased historical items largely for the Museum and Library of the RCSEng, only a year before the Clift auction in 1848.[16]

At the time of this auction, John Goodsir was a Professor of Anatomy at the University of Edinburgh.  He admired and held in high regard, the esteemed Dr. John Hunter.  As Lonsdale, himself would later write, “as his own powers were enlarged and strengthened, John Hunter, the anatomist, and surgeon became more and more his ideal and historic example.”[17]

Thomas Madden Stone “got the desk and advised Mr. [John] Goodsir of the sale of the chairs.  Mr. Goodsir commissioned him to purchase three and offered him double of what he paid for the writing desk, which offer was accepted.”[18] The writing desk is described in greater detail in the auction pamphlet description number 86 – “A mahogany secretaire and bookcase with glazed doors fitted with drawers and shelves.”[19] On 4 March 1850, Quekett wrote to Goodsir “Many thanks for a copy of your journal which I am greatly pleased with and to which I wish you every success…  By the way, have you ever received the Chairs and Bookcase.  Stone has been anxiously looking on for a reply from you for some time past.”[20]

Fig.3. Copy of the Letter of John Quekett to Professor John Goodsir, 4 March 1850, written by Dr. Robert Anstruther Goodsir, Photograph Courtesy of the Centre for Research Collections, Edinburgh University Library, University of Edinburgh, Gen 302, Box 1, Folder 3

The Goodsirs 1849-95

These furniture pieces were likely at John Goodsir’s residence at 55 George Square.  In 1852, Dr. Andrew Wynter (1819-1876), the Editor of the British Medical Journal became so outraged at the sale of the remaining Hunter chairs that were in the basement of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England that he wrote a critical article condemning the sale of such precious relics stating, “Alas!  in the very museum which he [John Hunter] founded, if the curious visitor searches from garret to basement, he will not find a relic of him left.  Did we say from garret to basement?  Then we must correct our statement.  Deep down in the foundations of the buildings, in an apartment inscribed, the ‘dry-bone room,’ now used as a kitchen, incredible as it might appear, is to be found all that remains to the College of the personal effects of Hunter.  Utterly neglected, and allowed to fall to ruin, are there to be seen the chairs on which he sat.  These chairs – some of dark imperishable wood – are at once souvenirs of two of the greatest names of the past century.  Cook, the great circumnavigator, collected the wood of which they are made in the South Sea Islands, and Hunter used them for years in his library.  Curiously carved and characteristic in form, they might well have been preserved, and yet have done good service, and hundreds would have sat on them with pride for their old master’s sake.  But will it be believed? – these precious relics are positively being sold, chair by chair, to anybody who chooses to pay a guinea – the price at which, it appears, they are valued by the Council.  The best and most perfect, we have been given to understand, have already seized upon by some of the members of the Council, - the rest, in various states of dilapidation, but all capable of repair, are open to the inspection and biddings of any person who, doubting what we say, might wish to verify statements so disgraceful to the authorities of the College, and so humiliating to every one to whom the name of Hunter is dear…  No argument of dilapidation can avail these gentlemen, or soften the disgrace of this act…  Look at it in any way we will, the disgrace which attaches to the whole transaction seems to us indelible.”[21]

The Medical Times and Journal would mention the chairs again twelve years later, writing, “Hunter’s Chair – No, the chair, which also forms a library-ladder when extended, and which was made by the great physiologist, is in the Conservator’s office at the College of Surgeons.  The chair to which our correspondent refers were sold by the College authorities some years since; the wood of which they were made was brought over by the great circumnavigator Cook and presented to Hunter.  It has never been ascertained what the wood is.  See the Medical Times, Vol. XXV., p. 347, et seq., ‘Old chairs to sell!’ Inquire at the College of Surgeons.”[22] After Professor Goodsir died in 1867, the furniture was housed in the Reverend Joseph T. Goodsir’s residence at 11 Danube Street in Edinburgh and remained with the family for the next sixteen years.

It was after reading an account of the Hunter bedstead published in the Land and Water Illustrated that the Reverend Joseph T. Goodsir wrote a reply which was subsequently published in the 28 February 1880 edition of Land and Water Illustrated with Goodsir writing, “John Hunter’s Chair – I was struck with the account given in Land and Water, some time ago, of a chair made out of a bedstead once the property of John Hunter.  My late brother, Professor Goodsir, bought in London, a number of years ago, a drawing-room armchair made of ironwood.  The wood was said to have been brought home by Sir Joseph Banks and presented by him to the great anatomist.  I now possess the chair and give you its history as told by my brother.  I believe that Dr. Acland possesses the marrow of this chair.  J.T. Goodsir.  [Our correspondent ‘Petros’ (of the College of Surgeons) will probably tell us more about this chair, which is, we believe, still at the College of Surgeons]”[23] It was his brother, Robert, who transcribed his brother’s letter to the Land and Water Illustrated.

Fig.4. Copy of letter to the Land and Water Illustrated from the Reverend Joseph T. Goodsir, 28 February 1880, written by Dr. Robert Anstruther Goodsir, Photograph Courtesy of the Centre for Research Collections, Edinburgh University Library, University of Edinburgh, Gen 302, Box 1, Folder 3

Thomas Madden Stone, going by the byname of Petros, which in Greek means Stone, wrote his reply in the Land and Water Illustrated on 6 March 1880, “John Hunter’s Chair. – In reply to your suggestion that I should answer Mr. Goodsir’s inquiry, I have to inform you that many years ago the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, when clearing away what was considered lumber, allowed any member of the college to purchase the two-dozen quaint old chairs at one guinea each.  My old friend, Professor Goodsir requested me to secure him one (I rather think two), and soon after, hearing I possessed Hunter’s escritoire, he pressed me very much, through another friend and colleague (the late Professor Quekett), to let him have it, and he would give me double the sum I gave for it, viz., eight guineas; both were packed up in crates and sent off to him in Edinburgh.  With regard to Dr. Acland of Oxford, he purchased the last, or rather, to have a complete chair, was obliged to purchase two, as they were much broken, and under my direction thoroughly restored.  He presented me with the unused portions, and, finding a few more pieces, I was enabled to have nearly another chair made – for the deficient bars we substituted ebony – leaving me in possession of two.[24]  And now for the wood of which they are made.  I have never been able to find what it is; no cabinet-maker can tell me.  They think it is this, or that; all I know is, that the wood was presented to our great Hunter by the celebrated circumnavigator, Captain Cook.  It is very brittle.  I have in addition to the two chairs, a kind of couch or sofa, much broken, but which I must have made up someday.  With regard to Mr [Frank] Buckland’s[25] chair, which he invited one to see, it is made out of the bedstead of Hunter, which Professor Owen gave to Professor Quekett; perhaps he afterwards repurchased it at the sale of the effects of that gentleman, and then gave it to Mr. Buckland.  So annoyed was the late Dr. Andrew Wynter at this dispersion of these relics, that he wrote a very severe leading article in the Medical Times, headed ‘Old Chairs to Sell,’ which gave great annoyance at the time to the authorities.  Mr. Wormald,[26] a former president, also purchased two of these chairs, but the most interesting one is used in Professor [William Henry] Flower’s[27] office, as it was made by Hunter himself, and forms also a very ingenious folder ladder, which has since been imitated by modern makers. – Petros.”[28]

Fig.5.  Copy of letter to the Land and Water Illustrated from Petros, Thomas Madden Stone, 6 March 1880, written by Dr. Robert Anstruther Goodsir, Photograph Courtesy of the Centre for Research Collections, Edinburgh University Library, University of Edinburgh, Gen 302, Box 1, Folder 3

After presenting the Hunter chair and bookcase to the University of Edinburgh on 21 April 1883,[29] Dr. Robert A. Goodsir began work on a short account of the famous chair.  In 1884, he published Only an Old Chair: its story as taken down in choice shorthand and done into English.  In this account he wrote of his affinity his brother, John had for the chair, “The desk at which John Hunter sat and wrote and thought should be to the Anatomist, the Physiologist, and the Surgeon, as the Moslem’s stone of Mecca.  John Goodsir had for these inanimate objects a feeling akin to veneration.  To him, they were ever eloquent.”[30] Later, in that same year, Professor John Chiene “showed a photograph of a chair, which along with an escritoire, had been presented to the University of Edinburgh to be kept in the surgical department.”[31]

Sir Richard Owen and Dr. Robert A. Goodsir would upon the publication of Only an Old Chair become close friends and subsequently corresponded with each other.  The relationship with the Goodsir family dates back to 1845 when Harry Goodsir mentioned Owen in a letter to John writing, “on Friday met with Owen and Robert Brown.  Owen is very kind and is to give every assistance.”[32] Robert Goodsir renewed the acquaintance by inscribing and sending his book to Owen on 1 April 1884.  The book is at the National Library of Australia and is referenced as nla.obj-2334157261.  Four days later, on 19 April 1884, Owen replied writing to “My dear ‘Unknown’ (friend, I am sure), I know not when I have read pages with more pleasure – yet I confess to tears being drawn by some old reminisces – than the exquisitely re-created memories of Hunter’s old Chair…  Oddly enough, a Students Society [Hunterian Society of Edinburgh] and myself, (1824) and which at my suggestion, the name ‘Hunterian’ then, little dreaming how I became associated with Hunter’s labours.”[33] Goodsir near the end of his life considered publishing his memoirs, as well as his correspondence with Owen.[34]

A centennial and exhibitions

In 1893, the RCSEng celebrated its Jubilee of its Fellowship and also marked the centenary of the death of John Hunter with an exhibition of relics connected with the great surgeon.  The ‘combined book-case and writing table are also figured.  The chair standing in front of the latter is one of a set made for Hunter from wood brought home by Dr. Solander from one of Cook’s voyages…  The one just mentioned is the subject of a very interesting pamphlet by Dr. Goodsir entitled ‘Only an Old Chair.’  In this brochure, the chair is made to speak and to give an account of some of the receptions given by Mrs. Hunter, not always if report to be true, with the sanction of her husband.”[35]

Fig.6. Illustration of the Hunter Book-case and Chair, Photograph Courtesy of the Graphic Newspaper, 15 July 1893, Page 24

During the 66th annual meeting of the British Medical Association held in Edinburgh in July of 1898, the furniture pieces would be on exhibition.[36] It would also be the last time the bookcase was ever seen again or mentioned.  The mystery of what happened to it continues to this day.

The Frasers

It seems very likely that the esteemed Professor of Surgery, John Chiene (1843-1923), gave the Hunter chair to Sir John Fraser (1885-1947) who, at the time was serving as House Surgeon and Assistant Surgeon to Sir Harold Stiles (1863-1946), both in private practice and at Chalmers Hospital.[37] Fraser studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh graduating with honours in 1907 and gaining the Class Medal in Clinical Surgery.[38] It was his research with his mentor, Sir Stiles, on bone and joint tuberculosis in children which established his surgical reputation.  He succeeded Stiles as the regius Professor of Clinical Surgery in 1924 and served in the position until 1944.  In that same year, Fraser served as principal of the University of Edinburgh until his death in 1947.  Fraser was Surgeon to the King in Scotland and was created a Knight Commander of the Victorian Order in 1937.[39]

After Sir John Fraser’s death, the Hunter chair was passed to his son, Sir James David Fraser (1924-1997) a Scottish academic surgeon and a foundation professor at the medical school of Southampton, England.  Sir James David Fraser subsequently became Postgraduate Dean at the University of Edinburgh, and like his father before him, served as President of the RCSEd from 1982 to 1985.[40] It was during this time that he donated the chair to the RCSEd where it currently resides - quite a journey since its official donation to the University of Edinburgh in 1883!

These mementoes of British exploration of Australasia and the Pacific revive memories of the great names of Captain James Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Daniel Solander, and his friend, the most esteemed British surgeon of the era, Dr. John Hunter.  Seated on this chair, Hunter studied at his desk the reference books stored in the glazed bookcase, which guided his medical studies.  Such was his contemporaries’ reverence, that after Hunter's demise, these pieces of household furniture were preserved for posterity by the far-sightedness of William Clift, the first Conservator of the Hunterian Museum. Moving forward in time and to Edinburgh, the furniture's purchase can be traced to the esteemed Professor of Anatomy, John Goodsir, whose contributions to science have been well documented by this author. These Hunterian relics were cherished under the custodianship of the Goodsir family, however it was through the foresight and generous donation of Dr. Robert A. Goodsir, that “Only an Old Chair" is now preserved in perpetuity for all to see.

Footnotes

[1] The Antiquary, Volume IX (London:  Elliot Stock, 1884), 273.

[2] Goodsir, Robert Anstruther.  Only an Old Chair:  its story as taken down in choice shorthand and done into English (Edinburgh:  David Douglas, 1884), 7.

[3] Bailey, James Blake.  Catalogue of the Collection of Hunterian Relics exhibited at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on Wednesday, July 5, 1893 (London:  Taylor and Francis, 1893).

[4] Bailey, James Blake.  Catalogue of the Collection of Hunterian Relics exhibited at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on Wednesday, July 5, 1893 (London:  Taylor and Francis, 1893).

[5] Bailey, James Blake.  Catalogue of the Collection of Hunterian Relics exhibited at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on Wednesday, July 5, 1893 (London:  Taylor and Francis, 1893).

[6] Crockett, W.S. “Anne Hunter” Minstrelsy of the Merse (London:  J and R. Parlane, Paisley, 1893), 85-90.

[7] Ottley, Drewry.  The Life of John Hunter, F.R.S. (Philadelphia:  Haswell, Barrington, and Haswell, 1839), 97.

[8] Coley, N.G. “Home, Sir Everard, first baronet (1756-1832) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2004): online edition, accessed:  11 October 2020.

[9] Coley, N.G. “Home, Sir Everard, first baronet (1756-1832) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2004): online edition, accessed:  11 October 2020.

[10] Bailey, James Blake.  Catalogue of the Collection of Hunterian Relics exhibited at the Royal College of Surgeons of England on Wednesday, July 5, 1893 (London:  Taylor and Francis, 1893). 

[11] London Courier and Evening Gazette, 3 September 1832, 4.

[12] London Courier and Evening Gazette, 3 September 1832, 4.

[13] “William Clift, F.R.S. (1775-1849),” Nature, 163, 946 (1949).

[14] London Daily News, 23 June 1849, 8.

[15] RCSEng Classmark: TRACTS 1873 (4).

[16] Lancet, 25 March 1848.

[17] Turner, William (ed.) and Lonsdale, Henry (contrib.) The Anatomical Memoirs of John Goodsir, Volume I (Edinburgh:  Adam and Charles Black, 1868), 131.

[18] Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh, Vol. III (Edinburgh:  Oliver and Boyd, 1884), 144-145.

[19] Effects of the late Wm. Clift, esq., F.R.S., conservator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, at his late residence, Stanhope Cottage, no. 79, Mornington Road, Regent’s Park. Wellcome Library, Reference Number: b22462569.

[20] Letter of John Quekett, 4 March 1850, Goodsir Papers, Gen 302, Box 1, Folder 3, Centre for Research Collections, Edinburgh University Library, Edinburgh, Scotland.

[21] “Old Chairs To Sell,” The Medical Times and Gazette, New Series, Volume Four, Old Series, Volume XXV (London:  John Churchill, 1852): 347-348.

[22] Medical Times and Gazette, Volume I, 1864 (London:  John Churchill, 1864): 707.

[23] Land and Water Illustrated, 28 February 1880, 187.

[24] It should be noted that in Acland’s codicil to his will dated 14 March 1893, he bequeathed to the University of Oxford an astronomical clock, John Hunter’s chair to be kept in the room at the Museum of the Regius Professor of Medicine, Osler.  The chair is currently at the Osler Library at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

[25] Frank Buckland (1826-1880) was an English surgeon, zoologist, popular author and natural historian.

[26] Thomas Wormald (1802-1873) was an English surgeon.

[27] William Henry Flowers (1831-1899) was an English surgeon, museum curator, and comparative anatomist.

[28] Land and Water Illustrated, 6 March 1880, 207.

[29] The Antiquary, Volume IX (London:  Elliot Stock, 1884), 273.

[30] Goodsir, Robert Anstruther.  Only an Old Chair:  its story as taken down in choice shorthand and done into English (Edinburgh:  David Douglas, 1884), 31.

[31] Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh, Vol. III (Edinburgh:  Oliver and Boyd, 1884), 144-145.

[32] Letter of Harry Goodsir, 21 April 1845, Goodsir Papers, A.R.C. 4.3/2, Folder 18 (3), Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Perth, Scotland.

[33] Letter of Richard Owen, 19 April 1884, Annotated version of Robert A. Goodsir.  Only an Old Chair:  its story as taken down in choice shorthand and done into English (Edinburgh:  David Douglas, 1884).  Copy held at the RCSEd. 

[34] The Scotsman, 18 January 1895, 5.

[35] Graphic Newspaper, 15 July 1893, 23.

[36] British Medical Journal, 30 July 1898, 335.

[37] The University of Edinburgh Our History.  Accessed at: ourhistory.is.ed.a.uk/index.php/Sir_John_Faser_ (1885-1947).  

[38] The University of Edinburgh Our History.  Accessed at: ourhistory.is.ed.a.uk/index.php/Sir_John_Faser_ (1885-1947).  

[39] The Times Newspaper, 4 December 1947, 6

[40] MacLaren, I.F. (1997). “Sir James Fraser.” Journal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. 4: 142-144.