Travers, Benjamin: Papers

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0114 MS0276
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	: Travers, Benjamin: Papers
Date(s)	: c1816-1868
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 3 boxes
Name of creator(s)	: Travers | Benjamin | 1783-1858 | surgeon

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Benjamin Travers was born in Cheapside, London, in 1783. He was educated at the grammar school in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, and then privately. He was a pupil of Astley Cooper from 1800-1806. During this time he gave occasional demonstrations and set up a weekly clinical society. He took his diploma and became MRCS in 1806. He was appointed demonstrator of anatomy at Guy's Hospital, and was appointed surgeon to the East India Company's warehouses and brigade in 1809. He was elected surgeon to St Thomas' Hospital in 1815, as well as the London Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye (now Moorfields Eye Hospital), where he succeeded Astley Cooper, and remained until 1816. He resigned his joint lectureship with Astley Cooper in 1819. He began to lecture again in 1834, with Frederick Tyrell at St Thomas' Hospital. He was appointed surgeon to Queen Victoria in 1837 and to Prince Albert in 1840. He was elected FRCS in 1813; Member of Council, 1839-1858; Examiner in surgery, 1841-1858; Chairman of the Board of Midwifery Examiners, 1855; Vice-President, 1845, 1846, 1854 and 1855; President, 1847 and 1856; and he was Huntarian Orator in 1838. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1813. He was elected president of the Hunterian Society in 1827, as well as President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. He died in 1858.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Papers of Benjamin Travers, c 1816-1868, comprising 4 manuscript case books, 1843-1859; a manuscript titled Annotationes in Re Medica ac Chirurgica, Apr 1850-Sep 1857; a manuscript titled Further Observations on some unusual forms of injury occurring at the hip joint, Nov 1853; a manuscript case book, inscribed with the address '12 Bruton Street, Berkeley Square', 1834-1839; syllabi of Travers' lectures; post-mortem reports, including Travers own by R C Headington; case notes by Benjamin Brodie and William Dalrymple; accounts of hydrophobia by various writers; letters from S Cooper, J R Farre, Samuel Reynolds, John Smith Soden, Edward Stanley etc; and a volume titled An Account of French Practice in 1816 by John Murray.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

As outlined in Scope and Content.

Conditions governing access:

By written appointment only.

Conditions governing reproduction:

No photocopying permitted.

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:

Donated by Mr R Burges (MRCS), great-grandson of Benjamin Travers, in 1919. In the accompanying correspondence Burges wrote that he had destroyed 'a great many' of the papers as he considered their value 'somewhat doubtful'.

Allied Materials

Related material:

30 diplomas relating to Benjamin Travers were donated by Messrs Farrer & Co, solicitors, in 1942. However they were missing in Nov 2007.

Notes from lectures by Astley Cooper and Benjamin Travers: Cooper papers (MS0008).

The Wellcome Library:Benjamin Travers lecture notes (MSS 1861-1862).

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Compiled by Anya Turner.

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:
Oct 2008