SIMON, Sir John (1816-1904)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0114 MS0028
Held at	: Royal College of Surgeons of England   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums-and-archives/archives/ ›
Full title	: SIMON, Sir John (1816-1904)
Date(s)	: [1838-1894]
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 4 boxes and 5 volumes
Name of creator(s)	: Simon | Sir | John | 1816-1904 | Knight | sanitary reformer
Detailed catalogue	: Click here to view repository detailed catalogue

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Born, 1816; educated, Preparatory School, Pentonville, private school, Greenwich; apprenticed to Joseph Henry Green, Surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital, 1833; Member, 1838 and Fellow, 1844, Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1838; Senior Assistant Surgeon, King's College Hospital, 1840-1847; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1845; Lecturer in Pathology, King's College Hospital, 1847; Officer of Health to the City of London, 1848-1855; Chief Medical Officer of Health to the General Board of Health, 1855-1876; built up a state medical department for public health and developed the vaccination system, and was particularly concerned with eradicating the smallpox virus; influential in bringing about the Sanitary Act, 1866 and Public Health Act, 1875; Surgeon, St Thomas's Hospital; member, Privy Council, 1858-1876; member of Council, 1868-1880, Vice-President, 1876-1878 and President, 1878-1879, Royal College of Surgeons of England; President, Royal Society, 1879-1880; knighted, 1887; died, 1904.
Publications include: A Physiological Essay on the Thymus Gland (London, 1845); General Pathology, as conducive to the establishment of rational principles for the diagnosis and treatment of disease (London, 1850); Report on the Sanitary Condition of the City of London, for the year 1853-4 (London, 1854); Report on the last two Cholera-epidemics of London, as affected by the consumption of impure water (Stationery Office, London, 1856); Inflammation in T Holmes A System of Surgery, ... in treatises by various authors, vol 1 (1860); English Sanitary Institutions, reviewed in their course of development, and in some of their political and social relations (Cassell & Co, London, 1890).

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of Sir John Simon, [1830-1895], comprising notes on English Sanitary Institutions; memoir by Simon of John Henry Green prefixed to Green's Spiritual Philosophy, 1865; notes on charitable bequests forbidden by law; notes on the local production of heat in inflammation, annotated by Simon, with article extract; manuscript of a paper on sub-acute inflammation of the kidney, with annotations by Simon, post 1830; memoranda /notes on physiology and pathology, whilst at King's College Hospital and St Thomas's Hospital, 1838; notes and drawings, 1838; copy of a paper on comparative anatomy of the thyroid gland, 1844; A course of lectures in General Pathology delivered at St Thomas's Hospital, 1850, with annotations by Simon; lectures on clinical surgery delivered at St Thomas's Hospital, 1850-1852 with annotations by Simon; copy of An Essay of Inflammation (1860), printed for private circulation with annotations by Simon; letters and papers by Simon and others relating to affairs of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1879; papers relating to the medical profession, including parliamentary bills written by Simon, [1878]; annotations by Simon on a printed pamphlet by the Royal College of Physicians concerning granting of qualifications, 1892; Personal Recollections of Sir John Simon, (London, 1894), with Simon's corrections; scrapbook of cases; papers on medical reform, 1830-1895.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

The records are arranged as outlined in the scope and content.

Conditions governing access:

Open to bona fide researchers by written appointment.

Conditions governing reproduction:

At the discretion of the Librarian.

Finding aids:

Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (1928) by Victor G Plarr.

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

The provenance of this collection is unknown

Allied Materials

Related material:

Letters to Sir Henry Wentworth Acland, 1884-1896, held by Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Special Collections and Western Manuscripts (reference: MSS Acland); correspondence with John Ruskin, held by the Ruskin Library; correspondence with A and J Severn, 1878-1902, held by Manchester University: John Rylands Library (reference: Eng MS 1260); Patient case book, 1832-1836, possibly compiled by Simon, held by King's College London Archives.

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Sources: Dictionary of National Biography Second supplement, volume III, (Smith, Elder and Co, London 1912); Who's Who 1897-1996 CD-ROM (A & C Black); British Library Public On-line catalogue; Historical Manuscripts Commission On-line National Register of Archives; BBC Science and Discovery website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/simon_john.shtml. Compiled by Julie Tancell as part of the RSLP AIM25 project.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal Place and Corporate Names 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
October 2002