.gif)
William Oliver (physician)
Encyclopedia
William Oliver was an English physician and philanthropist, and inventor of the Bath Oliver. He was born at Ludgvan
, Cornwall, and baptised on 27 August 1695, described as the son of John Oliver. His family, originally seated at Trevarnoe
in Sithney
, resided afterwards in Ludgvan, and the estate of Treneere in Madron
, which belonged to him, was sold in 1768 after his death. When he decided to erect a monument in Sithney churchyard to the memory of his parents, Alexander Pope
wrote the epitaph and drew the design of the pillar. He was admitted a pensioner of Pembroke College, Cambridge
on 17 September 1714, graduated M.B. in 1720, and M.D. in 1725, and to complete his medical training, entered at Leiden University
on 15 November 1720. On 8 July 1756 he was incorporated at Oxford, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 22 January 1729–30.
, where he introduced inoculation
for smallpox
but about 1725 he settled at Bath and remained there for the rest of his life, obtaining in a very short time the leading practice of the city. This was mainly due to his friendship with Ralph Allen
(a fellow Cornishman
, who introduced him to Pope, Warburton
, and the rest of the guests at Prior Park
), and with Dr. William Borlase
, his ‘friend and relation,’ who, after being his patient in 1730, sent to him the gentry of the west country.
, R.A. in 1742, in a picture now in the board-room of the hospital, in the act of examining three patients, candidates for admission.
, M.D. and Charles Lucas, M.D., in consequence of their reflections on the use and abuse of the waters, and their censures on the conduct of the physicians at the hospital. Much correspondence ensued, and it was published as proving the existence of a ‘physical confederacy in Bath.’ His medical skill is mentioned by Mrs. Anne Pitt. and by Mrs. Delany He and Peirce attended Ralph Allen in his last illness, and each received a complimentary legacy of £100.
, however it proved too fattening for his rheumatic patients, and so he invented the ‘Bath Oliver
’ biscuit, and shortly before his death confided the recipe to his coachman Atkins, giving him at the same time £100 in money and ten sacks of the finest wheat-flour. The fortunate recipient opened a shop in Green Street, and soon acquired a large fortune. The ‘Bath Oliver’ is still a well known brand.
, near Bath, and called it Trevarnoe, after the scene of his childhood and the abode of his fathers. For many years before his death he was subject to the gout. He died at Bath on 17 March 1764, and was buried in All Saint's Church
of Weston, near that city, where an inscription ‘on a white tablet, supported by palm-branches,’ was erected to his memory. There is also a plain mural tablet to his memory in Bath Abbey
.
The statement in the Life and Times of Selina, countess of Huntingdon
(i. 450–1), that he remained ‘a most inveterate infidel till a short time before his death’ is probably an exaggeration. He was generally admitted to have been an eminently sensible man, and one also of a most compassionate and benevolent nature. His library was sold in 1764. His son, the third William Oliver, matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford
, on 20 January 1748–9, aged 18, and his name appears on the books at Leyden on 21 September 1753. The eldest daughter married a son of the Rev. John Acland, rector of Broadclyst
, Devonshire; the second daughter, Charlotte, married, 14 April 1752, Sir John Pringle
, bart., F.R.S. Some of his descendants are said to have been living at Bath in 1852.
Philip Thicknesse
inserted some remarks on this essay in his Valetudinarian's Bath Guide, (1780, pp. 30–36). Oliver was also the anonymous author of A Faint Sketch of the Life, Character, and Manners of the late Mr. Nash, which was printed at Bath for John Keene, and sold at 3d. It was praised by Oliver Goldsmith
as ‘written with much good sense and still more good nature,’ and it was embodied in Goldsmith's Life of Beau Nash
. It also appeared in the Public Ledger of 12 March 1761, and in the Rev. Richard Warner
's History of Bath, (pp. 370–1). To the Philosophical Transactions for 1723 and 1755 respectively he contributed brief papers on medical topics, the former being addressed to Dr. Richard Mead.
Oliver wrote some elegiac lines on the death of Ralph Thicknesse; he was standing at Thicknesse's elbow at the moment that Thicknesse fell dead as he was playing the first fiddle in a performance of a piece of his own composition at a concert in Bath. His lines to Sir John Cope ‘upon his catching Sir Anthony's fire by drinking Bath waters,’ are in Mrs. Stopford Sackville's manuscripts.
Oliver applied to Dr. Borlase for minerals for Pope's grotto, and his name frequently occurs in the letters of Pope and Borlase at Castle Horneck
, near Penzance
. A letter to Oliver from Pope, dated 8 October 1740, and the property of Henry George Bohn
, was inserted with the first draft of the reply in Carruthers's Life of Pope. Several other letters were formerly in the possession of Upcott. One, dated 28 August 1743, is printed in Roscoe's Works of Pope, (i. 541–2), and it was reprinted with two others which were taken from the European Magazine, (1791, pt. ii. p. 409, and 1792, pt. i. p. 6, in Courthope's edition, x. 242–5).
In the summer of 1743 Oliver wrote to Pope to free himself from all knowledge of John Tillard's attack on William Warburton
, which was dedicated to him without his knowledge (Works, ed. Courthope, ix. 233). Two letters from Warburton to Oliver are in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, (v. 581–582), and several communications from him to Doddridge from 1743 to 1749 are contained in the latter's Correspondence, (v. 223–225, 302–4, v. 66–7, 126–9).
Three letters from Stephen Duck
to him are printed in the European Magazine, (1795, pt. i. p. 80 and pt. ii. p. 79). He bestowed many favours on Duck, and was, no doubt, the polite son of Æsculapius
depicted in that author's Journey to Marlborough, Bath, &c. (Works, 1753, p. 75).
A letter from Oliver to Dr. Ward on two Roman altars discovered at Bath is in the British Museum
, (Addit. MS. 6181, f. 63), and three more letters referring to some dirty and miserly old acquaintance of Jacob Tonson
at Bath in 1735, are in Addit. MS. 28275, fols. 356–61.
Some manuscript letters to James Jurin
belong to the Royal Society
.
Benjamin Heath
dedicated to him in 1740 The Essay towards a demonstrative Proof of the Divine Existence; plate 18 in the Antiquities of Cornwall was engraved at his expense and inscribed to him by Dr. Borlase; and the later impressions of Mary Chandler
's ‘Description of Bath’ contained (pp. 21–3) some verses to him acknowledging that he had corrected her poem, and that ‘ev'n Pope approv'd when you had tun'd my Lyre.’
Ludgvan
Ludgvan is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, UK. The village is situated 2½ miles northeast of Penzance.The parish includes the villages of Ludgvan, Crowlas, Canon's Town and Long Rock...
, Cornwall, and baptised on 27 August 1695, described as the son of John Oliver. His family, originally seated at Trevarnoe
Trevarno, Cornwall
Trevarno is a country estate in south-west, Cornwall, United Kingdom , once the seat of the Bickford-Smith family. It is situated near the village of Crowntown, two miles north-east of Helston....
in Sithney
Sithney
Sithney is a village and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is named for Saint Sithney, the patron saint of the parish church....
, resided afterwards in Ludgvan, and the estate of Treneere in Madron
Madron
Madron is a civil parish and village in west Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is a large rural parish on the Penwith peninsula north of Penzance.Madron village is situated approximately two miles northwest of Penzance town centre....
, which belonged to him, was sold in 1768 after his death. When he decided to erect a monument in Sithney churchyard to the memory of his parents, Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
wrote the epitaph and drew the design of the pillar. He was admitted a pensioner of Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College, Cambridge
Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college has over seven hundred students and fellows, and is the third oldest college of the university. Physically, it is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from almost every century since its...
on 17 September 1714, graduated M.B. in 1720, and M.D. in 1725, and to complete his medical training, entered at Leiden University
Leiden University
Leiden University , located in the city of Leiden, is the oldest university in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, leader of the Dutch Revolt in the Eighty Years' War. The royal Dutch House of Orange-Nassau and Leiden University still have a close...
on 15 November 1720. On 8 July 1756 he was incorporated at Oxford, and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 22 January 1729–30.
Medical career
On returning from Leyden, Oliver practised for a time at PlymouthPlymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
, where he introduced inoculation
Inoculation
Inoculation is the placement of something that will grow or reproduce, and is most commonly used in respect of the introduction of a serum, vaccine, or antigenic substance into the body of a human or animal, especially to produce or boost immunity to a specific disease...
for smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
but about 1725 he settled at Bath and remained there for the rest of his life, obtaining in a very short time the leading practice of the city. This was mainly due to his friendship with Ralph Allen
Ralph Allen
Ralph Allen was an entrepreneur and philanthropist, and was notable for his reforms to the British postal system. He was baptised at St Columb Major, Cornwall on 24 July 1693. As a teenager he worked at the Post Office. He moved in 1710 to Bath, where he became a post office clerk, and at the age...
(a fellow Cornishman
Cornish people
The Cornish are a people associated with Cornwall, a county and Duchy in the south-west of the United Kingdom that is seen in some respects as distinct from England, having more in common with the other Celtic parts of the United Kingdom such as Wales, as well as with other Celtic nations in Europe...
, who introduced him to Pope, Warburton
William Warburton
William Warburton was an English critic and churchman, Bishop of Gloucester from 1759.-Life:He was born at Newark, where his father, who belonged to an old Cheshire family, was town clerk. William was educated at Oakham and Newark grammar schools, and in 1714 he was articled to Mr Kirke, an...
, and the rest of the guests at Prior Park
Prior Park
Prior Park is a Palladian house, designed by John Wood, the Elder in the 1730s and 1740s for Ralph Allen, on a hill overlooking Bath, Somerset, England. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building....
), and with Dr. William Borlase
William Borlase
William Borlase , Cornish antiquary, geologist and naturalist, was born at Pendeen in Cornwall, of an ancient family . From 1722 he was Rector of Ludgvan and died there in 1772.-Life and works:...
, his ‘friend and relation,’ who, after being his patient in 1730, sent to him the gentry of the west country.
Hospital
Oliver took great pains in obtaining subscriptions for the erection of the Water or General Hospital, now called the Royal Mineral Water Hospital, at Bath, and in 1737 made an offer of some land for its site, which was at first accepted, but afterwards declined. Next year he was appointed one of the treasurers to the fund, and in July 1739 he became a deputy-president. On 1 May 1740 he was appointed physician to the hospital, and on the same day Jeremiah (known as Jerry) Peirce became the surgeon. The regulations for the admission and removal of English patients were drawn up by him; and in 1756, when the privileges were extended to patients from Scotland and Ireland, he compiled a set of rules applicable to their case. Until 1 May 1761, when he and Peirce both resigned, he ruled the institution. The third article in Charleton's Three Tracts on Bath Waters, 1774, consisted of ‘histories of hospital cases under the care of the late Dr. Oliver,’ a subject on which he had himself contemplated the publication of a volume; and Some Observations on Stomach Complaints, which were found among his papers, were printed in pp. 76–95 of the same work. Peirce and Oliver were painted together by William HoareWilliam Hoare
William Hoare of Bath RA was an English painter and printmaker, co-founder of the Royal Academy noted for his pastels....
, R.A. in 1742, in a picture now in the board-room of the hospital, in the act of examining three patients, candidates for admission.
Controversy
Oliver's position in the medical world of Bath involved him in trouble. Archibald Cleland, one of the hospital surgeons, was dismissed in 1743 on a charge of improper conduct, and the dismissal led to many pamphlets. An inquiry was held into the circumstances, under the presidency of Philip, brother of Ralph, Allen; this resulted in Oliver's conduct being highly commended. In 1757 Oliver and some other physicians in the city declined to attend any consultations with William BayliesWilliam Baylies (physician)
William Baylies , was an English physician.Baylies was a native of Worcestershire, and practised for some years as an apothecary. After marrying the daughter of Thomas Cooke, a wealthy attorney of Evesham, he began the study of medicine, obtained the degree of M.D...
, M.D. and Charles Lucas, M.D., in consequence of their reflections on the use and abuse of the waters, and their censures on the conduct of the physicians at the hospital. Much correspondence ensued, and it was published as proving the existence of a ‘physical confederacy in Bath.’ His medical skill is mentioned by Mrs. Anne Pitt. and by Mrs. Delany He and Peirce attended Ralph Allen in his last illness, and each received a complimentary legacy of £100.
The Bath Oliver and Bath Bun
Oliver is said to have invented the Bath bunBath bun
The Bath bun is a rich, sweet yeast dough shaped round that has a lump of sugar baked in the bottom and more crushed sugar sprinkled on top after baking...
, however it proved too fattening for his rheumatic patients, and so he invented the ‘Bath Oliver
Bath Oliver
A Bath Oliver is a hard, dry biscuit or cracker made from flour, butter, yeast and milk; often eaten with cheese. It was invented by a Dr William Oliver of Bath, Somerset around 1750, giving the biscuit its name....
’ biscuit, and shortly before his death confided the recipe to his coachman Atkins, giving him at the same time £100 in money and ten sacks of the finest wheat-flour. The fortunate recipient opened a shop in Green Street, and soon acquired a large fortune. The ‘Bath Oliver’ is still a well known brand.
Personal life
Oliver purchased in 1746, as a vacation residence, a small farmhouse two miles from BoxBox, Wiltshire
Box is a village located in Wiltshire, England, about east of Bath and west of Chippenham. It is quite a large parish with several settlements, apart from the village of Box, within its boundaries....
, near Bath, and called it Trevarnoe, after the scene of his childhood and the abode of his fathers. For many years before his death he was subject to the gout. He died at Bath on 17 March 1764, and was buried in All Saint's Church
All Saints' Church, Weston
All Saints' Church is a Church of England parish church which has been located on a hill at the centre of Weston, a small village on the outskirts of Bath, England, for a thousand years...
of Weston, near that city, where an inscription ‘on a white tablet, supported by palm-branches,’ was erected to his memory. There is also a plain mural tablet to his memory in Bath Abbey
Bath Abbey
The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Bath, commonly known as Bath Abbey, is an Anglican parish church and a former Benedictine monastery in Bath, Somerset, England...
.
The statement in the Life and Times of Selina, countess of Huntingdon
Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon
Selina, Countess of Huntingdon was an English religious leader who played a prominent part in the religious revival of the 18th century and the Methodist movement in England and Wales, and has left a Christian denomination in England and Sierra Leone.-Early life:Selina Hastings was born as Lady...
(i. 450–1), that he remained ‘a most inveterate infidel till a short time before his death’ is probably an exaggeration. He was generally admitted to have been an eminently sensible man, and one also of a most compassionate and benevolent nature. His library was sold in 1764. His son, the third William Oliver, matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
, on 20 January 1748–9, aged 18, and his name appears on the books at Leyden on 21 September 1753. The eldest daughter married a son of the Rev. John Acland, rector of Broadclyst
Broadclyst
Broadclyst is a village and civil parish that lies approximately 5 miles northeast of the city of Exeter, in the district of East Devon, England, on the B3181. In 2001 its population was 2830....
, Devonshire; the second daughter, Charlotte, married, 14 April 1752, Sir John Pringle
John Pringle
Sir John Pringle, 1st Baronet, FRS was a Scottish physician who has been called the "father of military medicine" ....
, bart., F.R.S. Some of his descendants are said to have been living at Bath in 1852.
Writings
Oliver published, in 1753, Myra: a pastoral dialogue sacred to the memory of a lady who died 29 Dec. 1753, aged 25. His Practical Essay on the Use and Abuse of warm Bathing in Gouty Cases came out in 1751, passed into a second edition in 1751, and into a third in 1764.Philip Thicknesse
Philip Thicknesse
Captain Philip Thicknesse was a British author, eccentric and friend of the artist Thomas Gainsborough.Philip Thicknesse was born in Staffordshire, England, son of John Thicknesse, the Rector of Farthinghoe, Northamptonshire and Joyce Thicknesse and brought up in Farthinghoe. In later life he...
inserted some remarks on this essay in his Valetudinarian's Bath Guide, (1780, pp. 30–36). Oliver was also the anonymous author of A Faint Sketch of the Life, Character, and Manners of the late Mr. Nash, which was printed at Bath for John Keene, and sold at 3d. It was praised by Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...
as ‘written with much good sense and still more good nature,’ and it was embodied in Goldsmith's Life of Beau Nash
Beau Nash
Beau Nash , born Richard Nash, was a celebrated dandy and leader of fashion in 18th-century Britain. He is best remembered as the Master of Ceremonies at the spa town of Bath.- Biography :...
. It also appeared in the Public Ledger of 12 March 1761, and in the Rev. Richard Warner
Richard Warner (antiquary)
Rev. Richard Warner was an English clergyman and writer of a considerable number of topographical books based on his walks and his interest in antiquarianism.-Biography:...
's History of Bath, (pp. 370–1). To the Philosophical Transactions for 1723 and 1755 respectively he contributed brief papers on medical topics, the former being addressed to Dr. Richard Mead.
Oliver wrote some elegiac lines on the death of Ralph Thicknesse; he was standing at Thicknesse's elbow at the moment that Thicknesse fell dead as he was playing the first fiddle in a performance of a piece of his own composition at a concert in Bath. His lines to Sir John Cope ‘upon his catching Sir Anthony's fire by drinking Bath waters,’ are in Mrs. Stopford Sackville's manuscripts.
Oliver applied to Dr. Borlase for minerals for Pope's grotto, and his name frequently occurs in the letters of Pope and Borlase at Castle Horneck
Castle Horneck
Castle Horneck is also referred to as Castle Hornocke and Iron Castle. It was an ancient castle which may have existed, located near Penzance, Cornwall in southwestern England. Castle Horneck is said to have been built by the Tyes family in the 12th century.-External links:* - note the...
, near Penzance
Penzance
Penzance is a town, civil parish, and port in Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is approximately 75 miles west of Plymouth and 300 miles west-southwest of London...
. A letter to Oliver from Pope, dated 8 October 1740, and the property of Henry George Bohn
Henry George Bohn
Henry George Bohn was a British publisher. He is principally remembered for the Libraries which he inaugurated: these were begun in 1846 and comprised editions of standard works and translations, dealing with history, science, classics, theology and archaeology.-Biography:Bohn was born in London...
, was inserted with the first draft of the reply in Carruthers's Life of Pope. Several other letters were formerly in the possession of Upcott. One, dated 28 August 1743, is printed in Roscoe's Works of Pope, (i. 541–2), and it was reprinted with two others which were taken from the European Magazine, (1791, pt. ii. p. 409, and 1792, pt. i. p. 6, in Courthope's edition, x. 242–5).
In the summer of 1743 Oliver wrote to Pope to free himself from all knowledge of John Tillard's attack on William Warburton
William Warburton
William Warburton was an English critic and churchman, Bishop of Gloucester from 1759.-Life:He was born at Newark, where his father, who belonged to an old Cheshire family, was town clerk. William was educated at Oakham and Newark grammar schools, and in 1714 he was articled to Mr Kirke, an...
, which was dedicated to him without his knowledge (Works, ed. Courthope, ix. 233). Two letters from Warburton to Oliver are in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, (v. 581–582), and several communications from him to Doddridge from 1743 to 1749 are contained in the latter's Correspondence, (v. 223–225, 302–4, v. 66–7, 126–9).
Three letters from Stephen Duck
Stephen Duck
Stephen Duck was an English poet whose career reflected both the Augustan era's interest in "naturals" and its resistance to classlessness....
to him are printed in the European Magazine, (1795, pt. i. p. 80 and pt. ii. p. 79). He bestowed many favours on Duck, and was, no doubt, the polite son of Æsculapius
Asclepius
Asclepius is the God of Medicine and Healing in ancient Greek religion. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts; his daughters are Hygieia , Iaso , Aceso , Aglæa/Ægle , and Panacea...
depicted in that author's Journey to Marlborough, Bath, &c. (Works, 1753, p. 75).
A letter from Oliver to Dr. Ward on two Roman altars discovered at Bath is in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
, (Addit. MS. 6181, f. 63), and three more letters referring to some dirty and miserly old acquaintance of Jacob Tonson
Tonson
Tonson was the name of a family of London booksellers and publishers in the 17th and 18th centuries.Richard and Jacob Tonson , sons of a London barber-surgeon, started in 1676 and 1677 independently as booksellers and publishers in London...
at Bath in 1735, are in Addit. MS. 28275, fols. 356–61.
Some manuscript letters to James Jurin
James Jurin
James Jurin FRS MA FRCP MD was an English scientist and physician, particularly remembered for his early work in capillary action and in the epidemiology of smallpox vaccination...
belong to the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
.
Benjamin Heath
Benjamin Heath
Benjamin Heath, D.C.L. , English classical scholar and bibliophile, was born at Exeter.He was the eldest of three sons of Benjamin Heath and Elizabeth Kelland. of a wealthy merchant, and was thus able to devote himself mainly to travel and book collecting. He became town clerk of his native city...
dedicated to him in 1740 The Essay towards a demonstrative Proof of the Divine Existence; plate 18 in the Antiquities of Cornwall was engraved at his expense and inscribed to him by Dr. Borlase; and the later impressions of Mary Chandler
Mary Chandler
Mary Chandler was an English poet. George Crabb writes that she left several poems, ‘the most esteemed of which was her “Bath”’.-Life:...
's ‘Description of Bath’ contained (pp. 21–3) some verses to him acknowledging that he had corrected her poem, and that ‘ev'n Pope approv'd when you had tun'd my Lyre.’