John Coakley Lettsom, physician, with his family, in the garden of Grove Hill, Camberwell.

Date:
[1786?]
Reference:
45716i
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Credit

John Coakley Lettsom, physician, with his family, in the garden of Grove Hill, Camberwell. Public Domain Mark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

About this work

Description

Lettsom was a keen gardener and the painting shows him in the garden of his house in Camberwell, with his wife and five of is children. Left to right: Ann Miers Lettsom (wife of John Coakley Lettsom), Mary Ann Lettsom, Eliza (?) Lettsom (so identified by Abraham, though having been born in November 1785 she seems to have been too young: Edward Lettsom, b. 1781, seems more likely), Pickering Lettsom, John Miers Lettsom, John Coakley Lettsom, and Samuel Fothergill Lettsom

Publication/Creation

[1786?]

Physical description

1 painting : oil on canvas ; canvas 71 x 90.6 cm

Biographical note

John Coakley Lettsom (1744-1815) was a Quaker and an important figure of the English Enlightenment, the movement in the 18th century towards freedom of thought and equality of rights for all mankind. Born in the Virgin Islands, his father Edward Lettsom owned cotton and sugar plantations on Little Jost Van Dyke, Green Island, Sandy Island and Cane-garden Bay. Upon the death of his father Lettsom inherited some property and the ownership of 50 enslaved people living and working on the estates, whom he freed. In 1808 his daughter-in-law, Ruth Lettsom formerly Georges (born Hodge), bequeathed him her estates on the Virgin Islands, which included hundreds of enslaved people. The bequest was contested by her children, but ruled in favour of Lettsom shortly before his death. Lettsom was apprenticed as a surgeon-apothecary in Yorkshire before practising as a surgeon-dresser in London. He practiced in the Virgin Islands for a period, before returning to London to undertake medical training and establishing a practice in Basinghall Street. He used his energies and income in numerous philanthropic projects, such as the Aldersgate Street Dispensary, which gave free medical care; soup kitchens; the founding of the Medical Society of London to enable communication between physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries; and the Royal Humane Society, which was concerned with saving people from drowning. He also promoted charity through his many essays on slum housing, alcohol abuse and the problems of blind people. He was also a keen gardener, and the painting shows him in the garden of his house in Camberwell, with his wife and five of his children.

Related material

Select images of this work were taken by the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum: WT/D/1/20/1/7/54

Reference

Wellcome Collection 45716i

References note

J.J. Abraham, Lettsom, London 1933, pp. 307, 449 (as by Zoffany)
Brian Green, Around Dulwich, Dulwich Village 1982, pp. 11-12
C.U.M. Smith and Robert Arnott, The genius of Erasmus Darwin, Aldershot 2005, p. 56 (reproduced)
Entry for Dr Joan Coakley Lettsom on the database of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146649667
Entry for Ruth Lettsom on the database of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146649669
Christopher Wright et al., British and Irish paintings in public collections, New Haven and London: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2006, p. 157
Kate Teltscher, 'A guide to the apothecary's garden [review of Clare Hickman, 'The doctor's garden: medicine, science, and horticulture in Britain']', The spectator, 29 January 2022
Zachary Dorner, 'Who cares about care?', The Collation, 13 February 2024, https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/who-cares-about-care/

Exhibitions note

Exhibited at the Medical Society of London, May 2003 - June 2022
Currently on display in the Wellcome Collection Library

Notes

This work is untitled: the title has been supplied by the cataloguer.

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