ENGRAVING, PORTRAIT OF JOHN HUNTER, AFTER REYNOLDS, c. 1830
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Production date
1830 1830
Production organisations
SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS [ARTIST] W. HOLT [ENGRAVER]
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John Hunter was a Scottish surgeon who was highly respected during his lifetime, being seen by contemporaries as one of the greatest surgeons and scientists around. He first began to work in the field of anatomy by way of assisting his brother, William, at his anatomy school. John Hunter soon after became an expert in human anatomy, and would even lead classes at his brother’s school.
Historian Don Shelton has accused William Hunter and his tutor, William Smellie, of having murdered dozens of pregnant women in order to dissect their corpses, with John Hunter also believed to have been involved in these murders, as he worked as his brother’s assistant during this period. Even in 1755, there were rumours that Smellie and Hunter were involved in shady business, as the number of deceased pregnant women which they were including in their research journals seemed unnaturally high. In response to these rumours of murder, it is believed that both surgeons stopped their research. While these accusations have been disputed by other historians, they do cast a very dark shadow on the legacy of three of Britain’s prominent medical researchers.
Following his time as an assistant to his brother, John Hunter would join the British Army as a surgeon and would serve for three years before returning to London in 1763, establishing his own anatomy school the following year. In the next few years, John Hunter’s reputation leapt to great heights; In 1767 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, He became part of the Company of Surgeons, and even became the surgeon of King George III.
Much of John Hunter’s legacy is due to his moving into a very large house in Leicester Square, where he would begin to amass a collection of various different specimens of plants and animals. One of the most infamous items in his collection was the skeleton of Charles Byrne – the ‘Irish Giant’ who stood at 7 foot 7 inches – which was stolen from his coffin and then displayed in Hunter’s museum collection. This same skeleton was on display at the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons until 2020, where it was removed from display following a renovation of the museum, with a further announcement in 2023 that the skeleton would not return to public display. In place of Charles Byrne’s skeleton, a portrait of John Hunter would be displayed upon the wall, although this painting would still depict the feet of Byrne’s skeleton hanging above Hunter.
John Hunter has been described by many contemporaries, subordinates, and historians as having a somewhat two-faced personality, going from kind politeness to impatience and provocation. He was also rumoured to have infected himself with both syphilis and gonnorrhoea to prove his (erroneous) hypothesis that they were caused by same pathogen. His Leicester Square house also served as inspiration for the home of fictional character Dr Henry Jekyll in the 1886 novella 'Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'. This fact, combined with Hunter’s aforementioned personality, adds to the belief that the character of Dr Jekyll was partially based on John Hunter himself.
Alexander Walker, Hidden Histories project participant
