Hanover Square Research Articles

Arthur Conan Doyle in Mesmeric Edinburgh and Hypnotic London

Arthur Conan Doyle's spiritualist interests are often viewed today as idiosyncratic for a medical professional and anachronistic for the late Victorian era. However, historians of the era recognise that there was widespread fascination at this time in the possibility of communicating with the dead and the development of extraordinary mental powers like telepathy. Conan Doyle studied medicine in Edinburgh where the study of mesmerism and its role in therapy continued for much longer than the rest of Britain. The university and medical school produced most of the major names of British medical mesmerism including the physician James Braid, who coined the term hypnotism. By the late nineteenth century, there were many distinguished physicians and scientists who shared Conan Doyle's spiritualist views. The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was the elite London association that investigated these possibilities using a scientific methodology. Hypnotism and the trance state were important tools in this study. Over the course of his thirty-six-year membership, Conan Doyle's convictions strengthened. The backdrop of Edinburgh and mesmerism is key to Conan Doyle's story ‘ John Barrington Cowles’ (1884) , while the scientific investigation of hypnotism described in The Parasite (1894) relies upon his experiences with London's SPR based in Dean's Yard, Westminster, and Hanover Square in Mayfair.

An English Composer and Her Opera: Harriet Wainewright’s Comàla (1792)

ABSTRACT This paper discusses an opera by the English composer Harriet Wainewright (ca.1766-1843), namely Comàla, which received its premiere at the Hanover Square Rooms, London on January 26, 1792. The composer was from a Liverpool family of Wainwright (variable spelling). In her Critical Remarks on the Art of Singing (1836) she describes her musical ability as a young woman. Moving to London she cultivated an introduction to influential figures in society and attended opera performances, where the singing of stellar castrati such as Pachierotti or Marchesi fascinated her. Possessed of a fine soprano voice she studied harmony and counterpoint with John Worgan, an organist at Vauxhall Gardens. She decided to compose an opera herself and spent about a year writing Comàla, a dramatic tale from the poems of Ossian. But she was unable to find a theater in London that would stage the opera; it had to be performed as a concert piece, the lead roles being sung by Sophia Corri and James Bartleman. Critics, including Burney, were fulsome in their praise of the work, and Haydn’s publisher William Napier eventually brought out a full score in 1803. Disappointed at not securing staged performances of Comàla or her earlier opera (Don Quixote) Harriet left for India in 1796 where she married Col. John Stewart, an officer in the British Army (East India Company) in 1801. She had Comàla performed in Calcutta by amateurs, singing the main role herself. Returning to England as “Mrs. Col. Stewart” she continued to compose songs and choruses after her husband’s death in 1820. She died in London at the end of 1843.

Getting and spending in London and Yorkshire: a young musician’s account book for 1799–1800

AbstractIn March 1799 John White was 20 years old and already an experienced professional violinist and cellist. He kept a detailed account book between March 1799 and March 1800 that provides much information about the economic and professional life of a young musician at the very end of the eighteenth century. White had showed early musical promise, and when he was 15 he attracted the patronage of the future Lord Harewood, who enabled him to take lessons from leading musical figures and appointed him as his director of music. White lived at Harewood House, near Leeds, but he spent some months of the London season each year with the Harewood family in their house in Hanover Square. The accounts show how White earned money in London by playing at private and public concerts and deputising at almost every place of musical entertainment in the capital. In Yorkshire he led orchestras in concerts and oratorio performances, took on pupils and visited Scarborough. White’s meticulous lists of his income and expenditure, from an expensive violin, a harp and harp lessons to silk stockings, waistcoats and hair ribbon, paint a fascinating picture of a young man making his way in the musical profession.

Colloquy: Attention, Anxiety, and Audition's Histories

### FRANCESCA BRITTAN and CARMEL RAZ > Fiction may struggle to hold us spellbound in the manner of music, but its prompting of more diverted states of mind, and its depictions of the richness and freedom found in the sloppiness of drifting thought, suggests how constricted a world can be that

‘From Behind the Counter’: The 1742 Select Vestry Campaign

This article explores an overlooked archive of papers of a 1742 committee of 81 men from the five largest parishes in the City of Westminster formed to petition Parliament for the reform of their oligarchic select vestries. It argues that, despite the limiting impact of patronage described by Nicholas Rogers, an adversarial, masculine, middling-sort political identity was emerging in the mid-eighteenth century. This identity was based on the publicly engaged, rate-paying male householder. The vestry campaign deployed national anti-Walpole, anti-corruption political language. Close analysis of committee participation in St George Hanover Square also reveals how it developed from experience of parish politics, especially conflict with their social superiors of the political elite. It was an oppositional identity that is recognizable later in the century in the controversies around John Wilkes and in the American colonies.

Review: The London Square: Gardens in the Midst of Town, by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan

Todd Longstaffe-Gowan The London Square: Gardens in the Midst of Town New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2012, 348 pp., 88 color and 202 b/w illus. $65 (cloth), ISBN 9780300152012 In the illuminated distance of Elias Martin’s 1769 View of Hanover Square , Trinity Chapel sits on the horizon line. A Protestant edifice situated at the end of a long axial view across this new London square, it is a counterpoint to the imposing facade of St. George’s Church. This painting suggests that streets were designed to converge perspectivally on this diminutive chapel, a fact borne out by contemporary maps. Trinity Chapel was a recent addition to London’s cityscape and was made to replace a temporary wooden chapel on wheels. The wooden structure was replaced by a “chapel of ease,” shown in Martin’s image, and was designated as such by the Parish of St. Martin’s in the Fields. Its parish church was overflowing with new members after the construction of sophisticated London squares in the West End.1 Trinity Chapel was hence a product of the city’s expanding population and the new geography of parish life responding to the construction of London’s ubiquitous squares. Martin’s image serves as the cover for Todd Longstaffe-Gowan’s The London Square: Gardens in the Midst of Town , and although the image is briefly described for its representation of the new Hanover Square, Trinity Chapel is nowhere mentioned in the text. Longstaffe-Gowan’s book is not about painting, nor is it about London’s myriad churches, and yet not discussing a central aspect of the book’s cover image—a chapel so implicitly woven into the narrative of landscape, urban development, and the outcomes of London’s rampant square-building—is the sort of omission that occurs too often in this large and well-illustrated text. For many images, the author provides little interpretation, and there are contradictions, especially in the early chapters, between images and text. Within the text itself, each chapter has its own host of loose threads: topics never fully …

Continuing Education Posttest

InstructionsTo obtain continuing education credit:1.Read the article carefully.2.Read each question and record your answer on the enrollment form.3.Complete the program evaluation questions. Please note that you will not receive credit unless the evaluation questions are completed.4.You must receive 70% correct responses to receive the certificate.5.Tests will be accepted up to 12 months from the date of publication.ObjectivesBased on the content of the article, you will be able to:1.Identify negative consequences to children resulting from child maltreatment.2.Describe when and how to provide screening and anticipatory guidance related to discipline, infant crying, intimate partner violence, sexual abuse, and physical abuse.3.Recognize the impact on children of witnessing intimate partner violence.4.State when to report a concern of suspected child maltreatment to child protective services.5.Recognize the link between corporal punishment use and physical abuse.6.Identify historical indicators of physical abuse.Contact hours: 1.0Passing score: 70%This continuing education activity is administered by the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP) as an Agency providing continuing education credit. Individuals who complete this program and earn a 70% or higher score on the post test will be awarded 1.0 NAPNAP contact hours.Two Ways to Earn Your CE Contact HoursEarn FREE CE Contact Hours OnlineContact Hours for this online activity are FREE for NAPNAP Members. Non-members will be charged a fee of $10 to receive Contact Hours for this online activity through PNPSourCESM. Payment can be made by credit card through PNPSourCESM.1.To take the Posttest for this article and earn contact hours, please go to PNPSourCESM at www.napnapce.org.2.In the Course Catalog, search for the name of the CE Article.3.If you already have an account with PNPSourCESM, log in using your username and password. If you are a NAPNAP member, log in with your NAPNAP username and password. If you are a first-time user and NAPNAP non-member, click on “Create New Account.”4.Once you have successfully passed the Posttest and completed the evaluation form, you will be able to print out your certificate immediately.Earn CE Contact Hours By Mail1.Mail your completed form with your check for $10.00 (members) or $15.00 (non-members) to NAPNAP, 5 Hanover Square, Suite 1401, New York, NY 10004. If you wish, you may photocopy the form rather than tear the page out of the Journal.2.Answers to the test will be graded and then you will receive a certificate for successful completion within 6 weeks of receipt of answers at NAPNAP.

A hero for their times: early biographies of NewtonIliffeRobKeynesMiloHiggittRebekaheds. Early biographies of Isaac Newton, 1660–1885(2 vols). Pickering & Chatto, London2006. pp. lxix +387; xlvii +420. £195.00 (hardback).1-85196-778-8.

Rob Iliffe, Milo Keynes, Rebekah Higgitt. eds. Early biographies of Isaac Newton, 1660–1885 (2 vols). Pickering & Chatto, London 2006. pp. lxix +387; xlvii +420. £195.00 (hardback). 1-85196-778-8. Though biography be no longer an act of worship, it is not yet a solemn and impartial judgment: we

Three Drawings by John James at Audley End

Three architectural drawings of an unexecuted building in the collection at Audley End have recently been found to be by the architect John James, surveyor to the Fifty New Churches Commission, and architect of St George, Hanover Square. This article describes them and considers which of James's unexecuted projects they illustrate, concluding that they most resemble his unaccepted designs for the Foundling Hospital in London.

New Light on Haydn's Invocation of Neptune

Haydn scholarship has long been aware that Joseph Haydn was not the first to set Marchimont Nedham's Invocation of Neptune text. The libretto of Friedrich Hartmann Graf's ode even survived in the British Library, but further settings by Johann Christian Fischer and Ignaz Pleyel remained in complete obscurity. An anonymous Invocation composition from Haydn's personal music collection (now in the National Széchényi Library, Budapest) inspires reconsideration of this problem. The work was probably performed on 23 May 1792 in the Hanover Square Rooms at 'Mr. Fischer's Night' and may well be Fischer's composition (if not one in fact co-written by Fischer and Pleyel, which could explain our complete lack of information about the performance of a third pre-Haydn Invocation setting). Apart from clarifying some details of the genesis of Haydn's Invocation, comparison with the anonymous setting also allows us to better appreciate the sensitive relationship between text and music in Haydn's work.

Dean and surgeon

The word dean derives from the Latin decanus—a person set over ten. Since the RSM boasts an Associate Dean, an Emeritus Dean and eight Regional Sub-Deans, the arithmetic tallies. I somehow doubt, dear reader in 2055, whether this will be so in fifty years’ time. What do the Deans of the RSM actually do, and how did the Society manage without such creatures for nigh on 190 of its 200 years? When appointed to the post four years ago, my list of duties began with ‘directing the academic policy and strategy of the RSM Academic Department and ensuring high quality educational activities’. These activities are basically of two types—those of the 54 Sections and those of the Society as a whole—and each component has its own team of administrators within ‘my’ department. Since the RSM is historically the sum of its semiautonomous Sections, it would be a rash Dean who strove to interfere greatly with their activity when they run smoothly, although we do check every programme with a view to accreditation for continuing professional development. By contrast, the Deans play a direct role in Society conferences, and it is the rapid growth of this activity over the last twelve years that especially justifies their existence. On the milled edge of our current two-pound coin we read that we are ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’. My own lofty position is due to my predecessor Deans, Professor Paul Turner (1992–1994), Mr Adrian Marston (1995–1999) and Dr Jack Tinker (1999–2002); their portraits grace the passage to the Academic Department on the third floor at No. 1 Wimpole Street. As Associate Dean, Dr John Scadding is poised to spring onto my own shoulders—alas not gigantic—next year. From this succession it can be seen that various species of doctor have held the deanly post. Experience in hospital medicine has been a consistent credential, while some knowledge of postgraduate education has proved equally useful. Much of our week is occupied with organizing the academic events of the Society as a whole. Many RSM conferences have a strong multidisciplinary nature, as befits an organization that embraces doctors of all description as well as dentists, veterinary practitioners and ‘lay’ people with an interest in healthcare. Some conferences stick to a narrower clinical theme (‘Key Advances’), others have a pronounced scientific content (‘Bench to Bedside’) while others are informal conversaziones. We also arrange various courses—for example, information technology for doctors, medicine for lawyers or coroners. An important part of the job is to represent the Society in dealings with other academic bodies both within medicine (e.g. the Royal Colleges) and beyond (e.g. the Royal Society of Arts), but also overseas (e.g. the New York Academy of Medicine). The breadth of activity is exciting: within the past week, as I write, we have taken part in a conference on ageing held jointly with the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Foundation, have helped convene a course for the MRCGP examination and have planned the forthcoming Bicentenary Service of the RSM to take place at St George’s, Hanover Square. It is also highly educational: over the past four years my own narrow focus on the pancreas has broadened remarkably to include topics as disparate as asthma and bioterrorism, acute neurology and the physiology of sport. My own week combines the duties of practising surgeon with those of RSM Dean in roughly equal measure. Many doctors cope well with this type of dual role, balancing their clinical duties with those of research scientist or hospital/ practice administrator or society officer. Is it any more difficult for a surgeon? The answer is no, except with regard to the disruptive effect of postoperative complications, which occur unpredictably and at inconvenient times. It is not just that a sudden haemorrhage can interrupt a committee meeting (which might sometimes be welcome); it is that they monopolize one’s thought processes until the problem is sorted and sometimes even afterwards. Generally it is only the operating surgeon who knows what is likely to have gone wrong—which is one reason why I prefer operation notes that have been written by the hand that wielded the scalpel. One unresolved problem with 218 J O U R N A L O F T H E R O Y A L S O C I E T Y O F M E D I C I N E V o l u m e 9 8 M a y 2 0 0 5

The sooterkin doctor: the London career of John Maubray, MD (1700-1732), "andro-boethogynist".

Dr John Maubray (1700-1732) was one of the most prominent man-midwives of Georgian London. His emphasis on the importance of physical examination and a combination of theoretical and practical teaching seems to have foreshadowed later methods of training in midwifery. His espousal of the non-instrumental Deventerian system of obstetrics and his activities in the parish of St George's, Hanover Square in London, identified him with the dominant Whig party. Although he failed to acquire a major patron, his network of social connections enabled him to obtain charitable and public service appointments, culminating in his chairmanship of the Charitable Corporation.

Human security discourse at the United Nations

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsKristen Timothy Kristen Timothy, a senior research scholar at the National Council for Research on Women, was formerly deputy director of the UN Division for the Advancement of Women. She holds a masters' degree in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School and an M.A. in African studies from Makerere University in Uganda. Timothy served as board president of the Association for Women in Development. Correspondence: National Council for Research on Women, 11 Hanover Square, 24th Floor, New York, New York, 10005, USA. Kristen Timothy, a senior research scholar at the National Council for Research on Women, was formerly deputy director of the UN Division for the Advancement of Women. She holds a masters' degree in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School and an M.A. in African studies from Makerere University in Uganda. Timothy served as board president of the Association for Women in Development. Correspondence: National Council for Research on Women, 11 Hanover Square, 24th Floor, New York, New York, 10005, USA.

20 Hanover Square, London W1: first home of The Royal Society of Medicine

Today Hanover Square, in the heart of Mayfair, is an entirely commercial area surrounded by buildings in every style from the 18th to the 20th centuries. It is hard to imagine it as one of the first Georgian squares to have been built in the 1720s in the West End of London. Only two houses, numbers 20 and 24, survive with their original facades and both are preserved as grade II listed buildings, though number 20 lost its elegant proportions with the addition of an extra storey at a later date. Number 20 is a very important house in the history of the medical profession in London. For over 110 years it was in the possession of a medical institution—first the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society (RMCS), then its successor, The Royal Society of Medicine (RSM). It became the meeting place for many of the specialist societies that emerged during the latter part of the 19th century, and within its walls many advances in knowledge and practice were first announced. It was only in 2001 that the RSM sold it, bringing to an end this long and venerable connection. The histories of the two societies have been written before, 1,2 most recently by Hunting3 who tells us how important 20 Hanover Square was to both societies. The RMCS first rented rooms in Gray's Inn within the City of London. It was not alone amongst professional institutions to migrate west; this was a common pattern from the end of the 17th until well into the 19th century. The residences in Mayfair and Belgravia were built by the aristocracy on their own land and, as they continued to move further from the City, so members of the professional classes moved into the houses they vacated.

20 Hanover Square, London W1: first home of the Royal Society of Medicine.

20 Hanover Square, London W1: first home of the Royal Society of Medicine.

The History of the Royal Society of Medicine

The History of the Royal Society of Medicine

The Carbolic Smoke Ball

The Carbolic Smoke Ball was an early purpose-made dry powder inhalation device whose promotion led to a landmark court case which established an important principle of English law. The Carbolic Smoke Ball was patented in England in 1889 by a Frederick Augustus Roe, as a ‘device to facilitate the distribution, inhalation, and application of medicated powders’ [1], although in some of its promotional literature it was described as ‘a new American remedy’ (Figure 1). The original patent describes ‘a composite hollow ball or receptacle of india rubber ... having an orifice provided with a porous or perforated disc or diaphragm ... through which when the ball or receptacle is compressed, the powder will be forced in a cloud of infinitesimally small particles resembling smoke’. It appears from trade catalogues that two different forms were marketed. The author has in his possession a version which is a rounded ball-shaped vessel with a flattened bottom and short neck, black in appearance, but actually made from very dark green glass. The smoke ball’s contents were composed of a mixture of glycyrrhiza and white hellebore (Veratrum vide) together with a tarry residue that provided the odour of carbolic acid [2]; carbolic inhalations had become fashionable for the treatment of various chest ailments, including tuberculosis, since Lister’s development of a carbolic acid spray to prevent sepsis following surgery [3]. It was promoted by the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company of Hanover Square, London, as a positive cure for a variety of respiratory tract ailments including colds, hay fever, catarrh, asthma, bronchitis, and influenza – as well as neuralgia and headache. The cost of each device was 10 shillings (£0.50); it could be refilled for a further 5 shillings. It was stated to be used by a wide section of the titled classes, as well as the actors Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. It was an advertisement in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1891 which led to the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company’s appearance in court [4]. The advertisement in question differed from that illustrated here, in offering a reward of £100 to any person contracting influenza or a cold after having used the Carbolic Smoke Ball according to the printed directions. Mrs Carlill (often misprinted Carhill or Cahill) purchased and used a smoke ball as directed, but contracted influenza nonetheless. Her husband (a solicitor by training) requested the advertised compensation of £100 on her behalf, but was ignored by the manufacturers, so sued them. The case (Carlill vs The Carbolic Smoke Ball Company) came to court in 1892, in which year advertisements containing the £100 offer were still appearing in the national press (for example, The Graphic) [2]. The defence argued variously that the claim was a bet within the meaning of the Gaming Act; that the offer was merely

Evolution of the secular organ performance space: An historical overview

The earliest organ was the 3rd century (BC) Greek ‘‘hydraulis,’’ a machine of wind-blown pipes which evolved through Roman and Byzantine eras into a musical instrument, by the 13th century becoming the exclusive domain of the church. The organ remained largely in the church through the 17th century, by which time it had matured into the sophisticated instrument we know today. By the 18th century the organ was being used outside the church, first in royal salons and music rooms. The Hanover Square rooms, complete with a small pipe organ, opened in 1775 and for the next century was London’s principal concert hall. The English ‘‘town hall’’ tradition of organ and choral music began in the mid-19th century, spreading rapidly throughout Britain, and eventually to other countries, most notably Australia and the U.S. Most of the ‘‘great’’ concert halls of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (Amsterdam, Boston, Leipzig, Vienna, etc.) included significant organs. The 20th century has seen the widest variety of organ styles and rooms, including sumptuous private residences, massive outdoor exhibition amphitheatres, and extravagant theatre organs. Expansion of higher education beginning in the 1950s brought many important university installations, most recently culminating in highly specalized ‘‘pure’’ organ performance rooms.

Laura Phillipps De Lisle: A Nineteenth-Century Catholic Lady

One of the most important and influential Catholic laymen of the nineteenth century was Ambrose Phillipps who in 1862 added de Lisle to his name and so is usually known as Ambrose Phillipps de Lisle. Born in 1809 an Anglican, he was received into the Catholic Church in 1825. In 1833 he married Laura Clifford, a member of one of the oldest recusant families in England and, although they were destined to have a large family, it did not impede their efforts to promote the conversion of the Midlands to Catholicism. Laura was born in Germany at Mecklenberg-Schwerin on 26 October 1811, where her father, Thomas Clifford, fourth son of Hugh, fourth Lord Clifford, was chamberlain to the Duke of Mecklenberg-Schwerin. Thomas died when Laura was only five years old and her mother did not live much longer, dying in 1822, when Laura was eleven. In 1823, Lord Clifford of Ugbrooke and Chudleigh in Devon became her guardian and entrusted her education to the Canonesses of the Holy Sepulchre at New Hall, near Chelmsford, Essex. She remained there until 27 June 1829 when she returned to live with her guardian at Ugbrooke. In 1831, she met Ambrose and two years later they married on 25 July 1833 at St. James’ Spanish Place, while the civil ceremony took place at St. George’s, Hanover Square.

The Vestry Library of the Hanover Square Unitarian Chapel, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

On the 26th August 1782 Willian1 Turner, a young man not quite twenty-one years of age, arrived in Newcastle at the invitation of the dissenting congregation of the Hanover Square Chapel, to become their minister, and thus began a connection which was to last till Turner retired in 1841. Turner, whose father was a Unitarian minister at Wakefield, Yorkshire, had been educated at the Warrington Academyl,2. He was soon active in local affairs. In 1783, inspired by the example of Robert Raikes, he set up the first Sunday Schools in the North East at Hanover Square, subsequently recommending their establishment in a sermon preached to an assemblage of the dissenting ministers of the Northern counties at Morpeth. He played a leading part in the struggle for the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, and in the Newcastle Anti-Slavery Society, of which he was secretary for a time. He initiated the Newcastle ;Bible Society, of which he was joint secretary for twenty years, and also the Newcastle Unitarian Tract Society. The intellectual life of Newcastle owed a great deal to Turner. The Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society originated in his suggestion that 'if a society could be formed for the reading of papers and conversations on scientific subjects it would be a useful way of spending an evening', as a result of which he was invited to read a paper setting out his ideas, and the society was founded in 17933• l'urner was its secretary, and also lectured on Natural Philosophy to the Society, delivering no fewer than 600 lectures in the next forty years. He also lectured on science to the Mechanics' Institute, of which he was a vice-president from its foundation in 1824. In this year he was one of the founders of the Newcastle Natural History Society.