BAILLIE, William Hunter (1797-1894)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0113 MS-BAILW
Held at	: Royal College of Physicians   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/archive-and-historical-library-collections ›
Full title	: BAILLIE, William Hunter (1797-1894)
Date(s)	: 1854
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 1 volume
Name of creator(s)	: Baillie | William Hunter | 1797-1894 | barrister

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

William Hunter Baillie was born on 14 September 1797 in London, the son of Matthew Baillie, the morbid anatomist, and his wife Sophia, the daughter of Dr Thomas Denman, physician. His great-uncles were the celebrated anatomists William and John Hunter. He studied at Balliol College, Oxford, from 1815, becoming BA in 1819 and MA in 1823.

William Hunter Baillie was called to the Bar, but never practiced as a barrister. Instead he lived as a gentleman of leisure and Squire of the Manor of Duntisbourne Abbots, Gloucestershire.

He grew close to his aunt, Joanna Baillie, the poet and dramatist, after his father died in 1823, moving in the same literary circles. He was interested in the family history of the Hunter-Baillies, and spent a considerable amount of time and expense gathering together the family's papers, from correspondence to ancient title deeds and other legal instruments, in order to establish the pedigree of the family. William Hunter Baillie also encouraged his aunt, Joanna Baillie, to write her memoirs.

William Hunter Baillie married Henrietta Duff, daughter of the Revd. Dr Duff of St Andrews, in 1835. They had eight children, five of whom, three sons and two daughters, died before he did, the other son surviving for just three months after William Hunter Baillie's death. Henrietta died on 3 February 1857. William Hunter Baillie died on 24 December 1894, at the age of 97.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

William Hunter Baillie's transcript of the autobiographic memoranda of his father, Matthew Baillie (1761-1823), 1854, copied from the original, with a letter from William Hunter Baillie commenting on the text of the memoranda

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Unrestricted

Conditions governing reproduction:

All requests should be referred to the Archivist

Finding aids:

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

The transcript was presented to the College by William Hunter Baillie, at the request of the College President, Dr Paris, in December 1854

Allied Materials

Related material:

Held elsewhere in the College archives is a typescript copy of the memoranda, with a list of Matthew Baillie's papers attached, n.d., C20th (MS108/83); For Matthew Baillie's papers held at the College, see MS-BAILM;

The collected papers, including letters and poems, of the Hunter-Baillie family, forming the Hunter-Baillie Collection, 1704-1923, are held at the Royal College of Surgeons of England; Family papers and notes on English history, held at the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. See the National Register of Archives for details.

National Register of Archives: Click here to view NRA record

Publication note:

Matthew Baillie's autobiographical memoranda was published in The Practitioner,1896, LVII, pp.51-65, in full with notes by J.B. Bailey

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Sources: `Newly-Found Additions to the Hunter-Baillie MSS', C. Robert Rudolf, Hunterian Society 139th Session 1964-65, delivered to the Hunterian Society, 3 May 1965; The Life and Works of Matthew Baillie (1761-1823), Franco Crainz (Rome, 1995); Library correspondence about the College's Matthew Baillie collection, and the Hunter-Baillie family; Historical Manuscripts Commission On-Line National Register of Archives.
Compiled by Katharine Williams

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:
Compiled March 2003; Modified October 2003