IDENTITY STATEMENT
Reference code(s): GB 0120 MSS.6824, 7148 & 7691
Held at: Wellcome Library
Title: Medico-Botanical Society of London
Date(s): 1815-1852
Level of description: Collection (fonds)
Extent: 58 items
Name of creator(s): Medico-Botanical Society of London
Frost | John | 1803–1840 | medical entrepreneur
CONTEXT
Administrative/Biographical history:
The Society (est circa 1821) was instituted for the collection, cultivation, study and exploitation of medicinal plants. Fellows, including those drawn from the medical professions, attended lectures, submitted reports and awarded annual medals for the encouragement of medical botany. John Frost (1803-1840), the founder of the Medico-Botanical Society of London. Frost abandoned medicine for botany after quarrelling with his teacher Dr Wright, the apothecary of Bethlem Hospital. He founded the Medico-Botanical Society of London in 1821 and became Secretary to the Royal Humane Society in 1824; in 1830 he was expelled from the Medico-Botanical Society of London on the grounds of his arrogant behaviour and in 1832, as a result of financial liabilities, he fled to Paris. Subsequently he practised as a physician in Berlin.
CONTENT
Scope and content/abstract:
Papers of the Medico-Botanical Society of London, 1815-1852, including correspondence letters and administrative papers of the Society, primarily relating to membership issues. In addition there are papers of John Frost (1803-1840), MS.7691 (4 items), relating either to botanical interests or the Medico-Botanical Society .
ACCESS AND USE
Language/scripts of material: English
System of arrangement:
No apparent arrangement.
Conditions governing access:
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 supplements to the Library's published manuscript catalogues.
ARCHIVAL INFORMATION
Accruals:
Archival history:
Immediate source of acquisition:
Purchased from: F.H. Sikes, Chelsea, February 1928; Charavay, Paris, October 1928/April 1929; Winifred A. Myers (Autographs) Ltd., 1991-1992; W.H. Collectables, 1992; Henry Bristow, 1996. MS.7691/1 accessioned in 1940, source unknown.
ALLIED MATERIALS
DESCRIPTION NOTES
Archivist's note: Copied from the Wellcome Library catalogue by Sarah Drewery.
Date(s) of descriptions: Jan 2009