PiecesPast
[ News | Go - Kingston | Discover Jamaica ]


Captivated
Sir Hans Sloane And His Passion For Jamaica

Complete List of Past Pieces
Current
Port Royal Earthquake
Port Royal Earthquake : I Was There
June 20, 1965: Martin Luther King Jr. visits Jamaica
Bog Walk Tube
For Your Listening Pleasure
The Road to Freedom
Birth of Independence
Hurricane of 1780
Tragedy at Kendal 1957
The Ward Theatre 1912
The Guarded City: Port Royal 1690
The Triumph of Will:1960s
The History of Our Parishes
Jamaica and the Great War
Jamaica's Grand Hotels
Celebrating Christmas Jamaica 'Style'
Disaster - The Earthquake of 1907
The Great Exhibition of 1891
The Mutiny On The Bounty & The Arrival of The First Breadfruit 1793
The Fall Of A Gentle Giant: The Collapse of Tom Cringle's Cotton Tree
Jamaica's Botanical Gardens
All Hail The State Visit Of Emperor Haile Selassie I
Jamaican Healer And War Heroine Mary Seacole
Mistresses Of The Sea: Female Pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny
The Capital City: A Historic Look At Kingston
Riots Here: Send Help At Once
A Historic Portrait of the Town Where Jamaica's Tourism Began
Devon House -The first 500 years in Jamaica
Jamaican Coffee - A beverage of distinction
Jamaican Rum - A kill-devil of a drink
Jamaica Festival - What a Bam Bam
Captivated by Jamaica - Sir Hans Sloane's Passion for Jamaica
Captivated by Jamaica Pt II - Noel Coward, Errol Flynn and Ian Fleming
The Founding Of The BITU & The JLP
The Founding Of the People's National Party
Lewis Hutchinson: The Mad Master
A Pioneer, A Survivor: Dr. Cicely Williams

Henry Morgan: The Pirate King

Claude McKay: Jamaica's First Poet Laureate
Frazier versus Foreman on the Sunshine Island 1973
The Magical Spiderman: Anancy
The Case Of The Shark Papers
Katherine Dunham - Matriarch of Modern Dance
Money - The Roots of Jamaican Currency
Simon Bolivar: El Liberatador
Old Time Tellin's: A Closer Look At Jamaican Proverbs
Recollections of World War II
Place Names - A Window to Jamaica's History & Character: Wnat's In A Name?
The History Of Spanish Town
A Cultural Explication Of Empire: Lady Nugent's Journal
The History Of Falmouth: Boom Town Of The 19th Century
Dreamers Among Us - Famous Jamaican Scientists- Prof. Louis Grant 1913 - 1993 Part I
Dreamers Among Us - Famous Jamaican Scientists-Part II
Out Of Many Cultures: The People Who Came - The Jews In Jamaica
Out Of Many Cultures: The People Who Came - The Chinese
Out Of Many Cultures: The People Who Came - The Lebanese
Out Of Many Cultures: The People Who Came - The Indians
Out Of Many Cultures: The People Who Came - The Irish
Out Of Many Cultures: The People Who Came - The Africans
Out Of Many Cultures: The People Who Came - The Germans
Colourful Characters - Jamaican Birds
The Stamp Of History: The Jamaican Postal Service
The People Who Came - The English
Old-time Jamaican weddings
In this place dwelt Horatio Nelson
Printing in Jamaica
Museums in Jamaica
Gibraltar Camp: A Refuge From War
HISTORY OF AVIATION IN JAMAICA: PART I
HISTORY OF AVIATION IN JAMAICA: PART II
Roads & RESISTANCE
KINGSTON'S HISTORIC AND DIVERSE PLACES OF WORSHIP RELIGIOUS ICONS part 1
KINGSTON'S HISTORIC AND DIVERSE PLACES OF WORSHIP RELIGIOUS ICONS part 2
The history of the Salvation Army in Jamaica CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS
Somewhere beyond the sea
A fascination with football
Jamaican Horse racing History
A Time to Live...Jamaican Birth Rituals
A Time to Die Death rituals
Deadly superstitions


Feedback To the Series

"I have found your articles on the Pieces of the Past most entertaining and interesting to read. For me as a historian these pieces come at a time when Jamaicans need to reconnect themselves with their past and the Gleaner's efforts through this medium is quite commendable.

I have found especially today's article on the 1780 hurricane to be quite of interest to me as I am currently involved in bringing to light the role of natural disasters in the development of Jamaica's history, culture, society, economy and politics and the article on the "Hurricane of 1780" has greatly aided in this direction. Keep up the good work and I look forward to more interesting and historically significant pieces from this series." - Kerry-Ann


The First 500 years in Jamaica

We're taking you for a stroll down memory lane for the next six months. Along this journey,we will relive several events which
significantly impacted on the social, political and economic development of Jamaica. As we travel share your experience with us...

Send your comments to:

Pieces of the Past,
The Gleaner Company Ltd.,
7 North Street, Kingston;

E - mail us:
editor@gleanerjm.com

Fax 922-6223.

OVER THE years Jamaica's compelling natural beauty has attracted more than a few individuals of worldwide acclaim. One that immediately comes to mind is the swashbuckler movie hero, Errol Flynn, who had an abiding love affair with Port Antonio. Others include British writers, Ian Fleming (creator of the debonair British spy James Bond) and Noel Coward (award-winning playwright) both of whom were pulled to Jamaica's north coast. Yet centuries before there was famed British physician, researcher and writer Sir Hans Sloane whose 15-month sojourn in Jamaica would help define his life and greatly impact future scientific advances.

SIR HANS SLOANE (1660-1753)

Sir Hans Sloane

Sloane was born in Ireland in 1660 to a family of relative prosperity. As a boy he is said to have been fascinated by natural history. It is no wonder that as an adult he was educated in chemistry, anatomy, general medicine and botany in both England and France. He was one of few people in history to receive a medical degree without having a Bachelor's degree. As a young fellow of the prestigious scientific group, The Royal Society, in 1687 Sloane was given the chance to travel to Jamaica as personal physician to the new Governor, Christopher Monck, the 2nd Duke of Albermarle. Knowing that this would give him the chance to make new observations of the natural world and collect any number of plant specimens, he eagerly embarked on this new adventure. During the ocean voyage Sloane exercised his natural curiosity by recording the habits of sea birds and incidences of phosphorescence in the water.

SLOANE IN JAMAICA

During the relatively short time in which time Sloane remained on the island he gave his deep curiosity about natural history full rein in ways he would never again be able to. He made extensive notes on local flora and fauna, local customs and even earthquakes, eventually compiling a massive collection of some 800 specimens. Sloane was known for his exactness and he would spend hours documenting and drawing anything he was unable to preserve. Yet he was not so completely steeped in science that he missed chances to invest in sugar and cinchona, the plant used to make the medicine quinine which began to be used in the 17th century to treat malaria. Sloane himself used quinine to make an ointment to treat eye ailments.

SLOANE'S RETURN TO ENGLAND

In 1689, the Duke of Albermarle died and Sloane accompanied his widow back to England, along with his collection of specimens ­ the first to be brought to England from the Caribbean. He stayed on in the Duchess' household as her personal physician for close to 5 years. Soon after Sloane published a list of the plants he had collected in Jamaica (Catalogus Plantarum, 1696). Sloane spent time meticulously comparing his findings with those of other scientists ending up with a groundbreaking study that reduced a number of species down to one. His work remains useful to this day for both scientific and historical research.

Several years after his return from Jamaica Sloane married the widow of a wealthy Jamaican planter, thus becoming a very wealthy man in his own right ­ a fact that proved useful in establishing a successful medical practice. In the 1700s he published a more extensive Natural History of Jamaica in two volumes (1707 and 1725). They also contained information of his visits to a few other West Indian islands including Barbados and St. Kitts and Nevis. By this time he had begun to receive acclaim for his research and writing but he continued to practise medicine on a regular basis. Indeed, Sloane went on to have an extremely illustrious medical career. He was appointed as Physician Extraordinary to Queen Anne (1712-1714) and King George I (1716), President of the Royal College of Physicians (1719-35; he succeeded Sir Isaac Newton) and Physician in Ordinary to King George II (1727). He dedicated the first volume of his Natural History to Queen Anne and the second to King George I. George I conferred a baronetcy on him in 1716.

Sloane is credited with promoting many public health care initiatives such as the establishment of a foundling hospital (a hospital for orphans) as well as the introduction of inoculation against smallpox ­ although an unpopular practice at the time Sloane did inoculate members of the royal family.

SLOANE'S MUSEUM

Sloane's desk probably looked very similar to this, notebooks full of his obser-vations of the natural world and collections of a number of plant specimens.

Sloane never lost his passion for collecting that was so well exercised in Jamaica. By the time of his death in 1753 at the age of 93 all the rooms and hallways in his house were filled to overflowing with objects of all kinds, shapes and sizes ­ plants, animals, gems, coins and many more ­ as well as his own drawings and notes. His house had become a museum of sorts and a major attraction. Aware of the value of his collection and harbouring a distinct desire to preserve it in perpetuity, he included a provision in his will that all the objects in his collection remain together in and about the city of London. He offered his collection to the city of London for £20,000 payable to his daughters ­ a large sum for the time but an amount far less than the collection's actual worth. Funds from a lottery were used to make the purchase during the year of his death and the British Museum of Bloomsbury was created. Over a century later in the early 1880s, the Museum of Bloomsbury's collections were transferred to a new home ­ the British Natural History Museum at South Kensington. Sir Hans Sloane, noted physician, scientist and collector, who had spent defining moments of his life on the island of Jamaica in the 1680s, had become the founder of the celebrated British Natural History Museum ­ his Jamaican natural history collection, in many ways, its original nucleus. In 1963 the Natural History collection became its own entity, recognized as separate from the rest of British Museum's collections. Today Britain's Natural History museum spans the gamut of the natural sciences and stands as one of the best in the world.

Sloane's sojourn in Jamaica can also be indirectly credited with introducing Europe to the pleasures of eating chocolate. Whilst there, Sloane became fond of a local drink known as cocoa. At first he couldn't abide its bitter taste, but found it pleasing once mixed with milk. He took the recipe home to England and soon many apothecaries (druggists) were manufacturing it as a medicine known as "Sir Hans Sloane's Milk Chocolate". The recipe was eventually taken up by the Messrs. Cadbury in the 19th century and, as they say, the rest is history.

Sources: Black, C.V. (1983). The History of Jamaica. Kingston: Longman Caribbean/ Carlong Publishers Ltd.,http://es.rice.edu/ ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/Files/sloane.html, http://www.nmh.sc.uk/ botany/ databases/slaone/hanssloane.htm

Coming August 26:
The series explores famous foreigners, like Errol Flynn, who called Jamaica home.


Give Us Your Feedback | Read what others had to say
Name
E-mail
Country
Comments

A Jamaica Gleaner Feature originally posted August 12, 2002
Copyright 2001-2 . Produced by Go-Jamaica.com