All this plus a gorgeous old Land Rover. We really spoil you every morning at 7am. Thomas Edison might have registered over 1,000 patents in his lifetime (the somewhat-disputed total figure is thought to be 1,093), but can any of his inventions hold a candle to the achievements of Sir Hans Soane? Frankly, yes — it’s certainly great to have light bulbs and telephones — but Sloane’s efforts are absolutely as big a deal, as Carla Passino writes in this week’s issue of Country Life.
Sloane was Britain’s most eminent doctor of the 17th and 18th centuries, acting as personal physician to three separate monarchs, making huge strides to popularise smallpox inoculation (some 75 years before Edward Jenner), and letting the world know about quinine’s anti-malarial effectiveness. And while all that would have been enough to earn him a Britannica entry, he also started the British museum. And he invented hot chocolate.
Let us explain. It all started when the young Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753) went to Jamaica as a young man to serve as physician to the island’s new governor. While there, the Northern Ireland-born doctor — a man of vast curiosity — gathered more than 800 specimens of plants, animals, shells and rocks, which he brought back on his return to England in 1689.
He carried on collecting for many years after, eventually amassing more than 80,000 ‘natural and artificial rarities’, some 40,000 books and manuscripts and 32,000 coins and medals. All of this he.
