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Wellcome Library

Harland Family


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0120 MSS.7681-7683

Held at: Wellcome Library

Title: Harland Family

Date(s): 1818-1821

Level of description: Collection (fonds)

Extent: 19 items

Name of creator(s): Harland | William | [1786]-1866 | physician
Harland | William Aurelius | 1822-1858 | surgeon and natural historian

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

The Harland family were based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.

Dr. William Harland (1786?-1866) trained at Edinburgh before practising in Scarborough; he was three times Mayor of the town, a friend of the engineer George Stephenson and the designer of a steam-powered car.

His son Dr. William Aurelius Harland (1822-1858) likewise trained at Edinburgh; as a consequence of an unwise marriage to a servant girl (see MS. 7682/22-23), he left England for Hong Kong in 1846. Here he became resident surgeon of the Victoria Seamen's Hospital and studied natural history, mineralogy and Chinese medical jurisprudence, publishing extensively in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. He died of a fever in 1858, shortly before he was due to publish a study of the natural history of Hong Kong.

Another son of Dr. William Harland, Edward Harland (1831-1895) (whom the letters mention in passing), was joint founder of the Harland and Wolff ship-building firm.

"On William Aurelius Harland, collector of Hong Kong plants" by James R. Troyer, in Archives of natural history (Vol. 24, pt. 1 (Feb. 1997), pp.149-152), gives further information but gives his birth-date as 1818/19 on the basis of an error in the age given on his tombstone.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Correspondence between members of the Harland family.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Several of William Aurelius Harland's letters from Hong Kong have rare postal markings and for security reasons these have been replaced by photocopies in the files produced to the public. The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Photocopies/photographs/microfilm are supplied for private research only at the Archivist's discretion. Please note that material may be unsuitable for copying on conservation grounds, and that photographs cannot be photocopied in any circumstances. Readers are restricted to 100 photocopies in twelve months. Researchers who wish to publish material must seek copyright permission from the copyright owner.

Finding aids:

Described in Richard Aspin and Christopher Hilton's typescript supplement to S.A.J Moorat's Catalogue of Western Manuscripts.

Detailed catalogue

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Accruals:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Purchased from Sotheby's, London, December 1998.

ALLIED MATERIALS

Related material:

In the Wellcome Library: Hong Kong figures mentioned in William Aurelius Harland's letters include the Colonial Surgeon William Morrison (see MSS. 5827-5852 for papers relating to the Morrison family) and the administrator, linguist, writer and traveller Sir John Bowring (1792-1872) (see MS. 6128).

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Archivist's note: Copied from the Wellcome Library catalogue by Sarah Drewery.

Rules or conventions: In compliance with ISAD (G): General International Standard Archival Description - 2nd Edition (1999); UNESCO Thesaurus, December 2001; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: Jan 2009


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Hospitals, military | Hospitals | Health services
Physicians | Medical personnel | Medical profession | Medical sciences
Surgeons | Medical personnel | Medical profession | Medical sciences
Surgeons x Physicians
Medical institutions
Natural history
Personnel

Personal names
Harland | William Aurelius | 1822-1858 | surgeon and natural historian
Harland | William | [1786]-1866 | physician

Corporate names

Places