William Clift, F.R.S.(1775–1849)

Abstract

ONE hundred years ago, on June 20, 1849, William Clift, one of the most lovable figures in John Hunter's world, died after more than half a century devoted to his master's cause. Clift was born in his father's flour mill at Burcome, near Bodmin, on February 14 (Hunder's birthday), 1775, and it was on his hero's birthday that, at the age of seventeen, he became Hunter's prosector and amanuensis. When a year later Hunter died, his executors, Matthew Baillie and Everard Home, retained Cliffs services in the museum in Castle Street for seven years at a weekly wage of seven shillings. In 1800 the Government purchased Hunter's collections, entrusted them to the Royal College of Surgeons, and appointed Clift conservator. He was succeeded in 1842 by Richard Owen, who had married his daughter Caroline. Perhaps the most dramatic event in Cliffs uneventful life was the evidence which he gave before the Parliamentary Committee on Medical Education in 1834 concerning the destruction of Hunter's manuscripts by Sir Everard Home. Fortunately, he had with loving care copied nine folios. His transcripts were published by Owen in 1861 under the title "Essays and Observations". A good anatomist and an accomplished artist, Clift enriched Matthew Baillie's "Morbid Anatomy"(1793) with fine copper-plate illustrations. Through the influence of Sir Humphry Davy he was elected to the Royal Society in 1823. Only five feet in height, timid, retiring and kind-hearted, with a "head crammed full of knowledge", Clift was a "meticulous gatherer of small facts", who was "always ready to impart/tftd not to appropriate information".