On the identity of Jacques du Moulin, F.R.S. 1667.

Abstract

One of the very few early Fellows of the Royal Society who defied sure identification by Michael Hunter in 19821 was the ‘Dr. James Moulins’ proposed by Lord Berkeley on 28 November and elected as ‘Dr. James du Molins’ on 5 December 1667, who signed as ‘Jaques du Moulin’. He translated Sprat’s History of the Society into French but was otherwise inactive, paying subscriptions only until 1670 and being expelled in 1682 for non-payment. Giving him the alternative spelling ‘Molines’, Hunter listed him as ‘? Master of Surgery to Charles II & James II etc (DNB)' and noted that he might not be that one of the two namesakes in D.N.B. The identification of Jaques du Moulin as ‘the surgeon usually called James Molines (1628-86)’ had already been questioned by the editors of Oldenburg’s Correspondence . The surgeon to the Household of Charles II and to the Person of James II was the James Molins who was baptized at St Andrew, Holborn, on 10 March 1630/31, son of Edward, and who died on 8 February 1686/7, being buried three days later at St Bride’s, Fleet Street. The purpose of this article is to show that neither he nor his namesake cousin was Jaques du Moulin, F.R.S., and that the Fellow was not from the well-known Du Moulin family of French origin. Evidence is presented that Jaques du Moulin was a James Miln or Milne from Aberdeen, who lived for years in the south of France and was probably not medically qualified.