Granville, Augustus Bozzi (1783-1872), physician and Italian patriot

  • Granville, A. B. (Augustus Bozzi), 1783-1872.
Date:
1825-1866
Reference:
MS.8709
  • Archives and manuscripts

About this work

Description

Ten letters and notes from Granville to various individuals, some unnamed.

Items 1-6 are dated 1825-1866; items 7-10 are undated, and in addition items 3 and 9-10 are incomplete, the beginning of the letter being lacking.

Correspondents include the secretary of the Atheneum (no.1), the President of the Royal College of Surgeons (no.2), the scholar and clergyman Francis Wrangham FRS (1769-1842) and Professor König at the British Museum (no.7).

Publication/Creation

1825-1866

Physical description

1 file (10 items)

Acquisition note

Purchased from: Puttick and Simpson, June 1921 (acc.67262) and May 1930 (acc.62824); Stevens, London, January 1929 (acc.89269) and March 1931 (acc.56490); E.E. Newton, Upminster, June 1932 (acc.91318); Glendining, London, January 1935 (acc.67947). Item 10 transferred from Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, c.1939 (acc.91800); original accession details no.24897 are noted in the accessions register as meaning "Purchased from "Mr. Th. Basle", September 1910", but this is probably erroneous as the description in the accession register does not match the item in the file. No acquisition details noted for no.2.

Biographical note

Augustus Bozzi Granville was born Augustus Bozzi in Milan, third son of Carlo Bozzi who was postmaster-general of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, and his wife, Maria Antonietta Rapazzini. His maternal grandfather was a Cornishman, Bevil Granville, and Bozzi assumed the surname Granville about 1805 in accordance with his mother's dying wish.

Educated initially in Milan, in 1799 he entered the University of Pavia to study medicine. He was an ardent republican and was imprisoned briefly for his political and satirical activities. In 1802 he graduated as MD.

He spent the years following his medical degree travelling around the Mediterranean. In Corfu he met W. R. Hamilton, who at the time was private secretary to Lord Elgin at Constantinople, and the two men travelled together in Greece; after Hamilton's return to Britain Bozzi became second physician to the Turkish fleet, then - joining a trading ship to Malaga - he practised medicine in Spain for a while. As noted above, about 1805 he adopted the name Granville, which he was using by the time he arrived in Lisbon in 1806, where he entered the Royal Navy as an assistant surgeon. He served in the Navy, rising to full surgeon, until 1813.

Granville left active service in the navy in 1813, becoming first a tutor and then a general practitioner; he also lectured in chemistry, losing his sense of smell as a result of a demonstration involving chlorine. During these years he was particularly active as an exiled Italian patriot, distributing papers agitating for a rising against the French, managing the London journal L'Italico, assisting the sculptor Antonio Canova's mission in 1815 to restore Italian art treasures looted by France, and introducing a deputation from the Milan provisional government to the Duke of Sussex, offering him the Italian crown.

During 1816/7 he trained as an accoucheur in Paris and thereafter specialised in obstetrics and children's medicine, practising in Savile Row, Westminster, acting as physician-accoucheur to the Westminster General Dispensary and setting up a dispensary for sick children in the West End of London. He was an active member of the Royal Institution and the British Medical Association, and wrote controversially criticising the Royal Society. His other medical interests included spas and spa water, popularising the spa of Kissingen in Germany and latterly spending more time in practice there than in London, in particular after the death of his wife in 1861. He died in Dover in 1872 and his autobiography was published posthumously, in 1874.

Related material

At Wellcome Collection:

An extract from Granville's The spas of England: Midland spas (London, 1841), relating to Lincoln lunatic asylum, is transcribed in MS.7076.

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Where to find it

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Identifiers

Accession number

  • 24897
  • 56490
  • 62824
  • 67262
  • 67947
  • 89269
  • 91318
  • 91800