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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; phsyician 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 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
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Criticism
Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica, Irish Worthies (1821), vol.
II, pp.551-56; 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.].
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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].
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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.]
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Notes
Sloane 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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