[Sir] Hans Sloane

Life
1660-1753; b. Killyleagh, Co. Down; studied at Paris and Montpellier; MD Orange, 1683; FRS 1685; lived in house of Thomas Sydenham; physician to governor of Jamaica, 1687-89; sec. to Royal Soc., 1693-1712; published botanical Latin catalogue of Natural History of Jamaica (1696), deemed a masterpice of style and precision; A Voyage to the Islands of Madera, Barbadoes, Nieves, St. Christopher’s and Jamaica (1707, 1725); attending Queen Anne; bart., 1716; first physician to George II, 1727;

physician to Christ’s Hosp., 1694-1730; revived and edited Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 1703-1712; bought manor of Chelsea, 1712; founded Botanic Gardens, 1721; succeeded Isaac Newton as Pres. of Royal Society, 1727-41; member of academy of Sciences, Paris, st. Petersburg, and Madrid; treated poor free, provided they arrived before 10 a.m.; invested huge income from medicine in the London housing that bears his names (Sloane Sq. and Hans Crescent);

his book-collection purchased for Montague House, 1754, afterwards forming the core of British Museum Natural History section; monument in Chelsea churchyard; there is a portrait by Godfrey Kneller a terra cotta bust by J. M. Rysbrack, and a statue inside the entrance of the British Museum (formerly in the Chelsea Physic Garden). RR CAB ODNB DIW OCEL OCIL

 

Criticism
Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica, Irish Worthies (1821), vol. II, pp.551-56 [as attached]; Edward J. L. Scott, ed., Index to the Sloane MSS in British Museum Library [1904] (BM Trustees 1971), 583pp. [alphabetical by author/subject from Earl of Abingdon to Zwinger]; E. St. J[ohn] Brooks, Sir Hans Sloane (1954); William R. Sloan[e], Sir Hans Sloane, founder of the British Museum: Legend and Lineage (N. Ireland: Helen’s Bay 1981); Arthur MacGregor, ed., Sir Hans Sloane: Collector, Scientist, Antiquary, Founding Father of the British Museum (London: British Museum 1994), 308pp.; Martin Brown, Hans Sloane, 1660-1753 [Irish Scientists and Inventors ser.] (Belfast: Blackstaff Press 1995), 24pp.

See also R. L. Praeger, The Way that I Went: An Irishman in Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co./London: Methuen 1947), Chap. V.: ‘The Silurian Region (Down, Armagh, Louth, Monaghan, Cavan’ - “Sir Hans Sloane” [chap. sect.].

 

References
University of Ulster Library (Morris Collecton) holds William R. Sloan[e], Sir Hans Sloane, founder of the British Museum, legend and lineage (Helen’s Bay 1981); see also E. St. J[ohn] Brooks, Sir Hans Sloane (1954) [Alan Eager].

 

Quotations
‘Knowledge of Natural-History being Observation of Matters of Fact, is more certain than most Others, and in my slender Opinion, less subjected to Mistakes than Reasonings, Hypothesis, and Deductions are.’ [Cited in review of MacGregor, ed., Sir Hans Sloane (BM 1994), in Times Literary Supplement, 30 Dec. 1994.]

 

Notes
William King: Hans Sloane was attacked by William King (1663-1712) in The Transactioneer (1700) and in Useful Transactions (1709) [see Augustan Reprint Soc., No. 251].

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