Baillie, Matthew (1761-1823)

The eleven letters are as follows:

1: From Baillie to Mr Cadell and Mr Davies, Strand, about covering the costs of the printing of a manuscript (30 December 1797);

2: From Baillie to Mr Walker thanking the Medical Council for asking him to remain a member (17 April 1804);

3: From Baillie to Mr Woollett, surgeon, Monmouth about Mrs Molyneux's health (29 October 1807);

4: Prescription (initialled) for Rochford Bloomfield (28 April 1814)

5: From Baillie to Dr Thackeray, Chester [Joseph, 1784-1832, of Bedford M.D. Edinburgh 1817] about Thackeray's drawings of disease (3 August 1820);

6: From Baillie to Dr Buchan, Pimlico arranging a meeting (28 February no year);

7: From Baillie to Christopher Idle about arranging a visit (no date);

8: From Baillie to Wilson about attending Wilson's lecture (3 May no year);

9: From Baillie to Reverend Maurice, North Street thanking Maurice for his present (25 April no year);

10: From Baillie to ? diagnosing a health problem (no date);

11: Document by Baillie on "the merit of M B [Matthew Bailey]" (no date).

This material was formerly held in the Western Manuscripts Department Autograph Letter sequence.

30 December 1797- 3 August 1820

1 file

Purchased from: Sotheby's, London, November 1928 (acc.56133), July 1930 (acc.56370); Stevens, London, March 1931 (acc.56474); Glendining, London, November 1931 (acc.67582), October 1933 (acc.67801), February 1935 (acc.68005); Mrs. Watson, Burnley, March 1945 (acc.72200), presumably once part of the Thomas Madden Stone autograph collection; Bloomsbury Book Auctions, London, October 1992 (acc.349050).

Matthew Baillie, a morbid anatomist and physician, was born in Lanarkshire in 1761. His maternal uncles were the anatomists, William and John Hunter and his sister Joanna, was a poet.

Baillie attended the University of Glasgow and then entered Balliol College, Oxford from which he graduated with a BA in 1783 and MA in 1786.

In 1780, Baillie went to live with William Hunter in London and attended dissections and lectures at Hunter's anatomy school in Great Windmill Street. When Hunter died in 1783, he left Baillie control of the anatomy school, the eventual freehold of the premises, thirty years use of the museum and £5000.

Baillie became an established anatomy lecturer, and continued in that role at Great Windmill Street until 1799. He completed his broader medical training as a pupil at St George's Hospital where he was appointed physician in 1787. He graduated BM at Oxford in 1786 (DM, 1789); was elected FRCP (London) in 1790 and FRS in 1790 (FRSE, 1799). Baillie was Croonian lecturer of the Royal Society (1791), and of the Royal College of Physicians of London (1796-8), for whom he was also Goulstonian lecturer (1794). In 1805 he was a founder member (and second president, 1808-10) of the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London. He also held honorary membership of many medical societies.

Baillie's most significant work, The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body, was published in 1793. It established morbid anatomy as an independent science.

Baillie's appointment as physician to St George's began a gradual build up of his practice. In 1799 he gave up teaching and his St George's appointment for private practice. In 1810, he was appointed physician-extraordinary to George III. He visited the deranged king at Windsor several hundred times during the regency and was present at his death on 29 January 1820.

In 1791 Baillie married Sophia Denman (1771-1845). They had a daughter and two sons.

This information is taken from the The Dictionary of National Biography where a full accounts of Baillie's life and work can be found.