Hans Sloane

Sloane was born into a family of partial Ulster-Scots descent on 16 April 1660 at Killyleagh, a village on the south-western shores of Strangford Lough in County Down in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. He was the seventh and last child of Alexander Sloane, who died when Hans was six years old. Alexander Sloane was a collector general of taxes for County Down and an agent for the Earl of Clanbrassil. His brother, James Sloane, was a Member of the Irish Parliament. It is said that Sarah Hicks (Hans's mother) was an Englishwoman who moved to Killyleagh as Anne Carey's companion when Anne married Lord Clanbrassil. Sloane's paternal family were Ulster-Scots, having migrated from Ayrshire in the south-west of Scotland; they settled in east Ulster during the Plantation of Antrim and Down, which was slightly separate from the wider Plantation of Ulster, under King James VI and I. The Sloane children, including Hans, were taken up by the Hamilton (or Clanbrassil) family and had much of their early tuition within the Killyleagh Castle library. Out of Alexander's sons, only three reached adulthood: Hans, William, and James. The graveyards of Henry and John Sloane can be found in Killyleagh's churchyard; both brothers died in their childhood. The eldest brother James was elected a Member of Parliament for Roscommon and Killyleagh in 1692. John Sloane later became an MP of Thetford and a barrister of the Inner Temple, spending most of his time in London. Like many other Scots "Planters" in Ulster during the seventeenth century, the Sloane name was almost certainly of Gaelic origin, Sloane probably being an anglicisation of Ó Sluagháin. As a youth, Sloane collected objects of natural history and other curiosities. This led him to the study of medicine, which he did in London, where he studied botany, materia medica, surgery and pharmacy. His collecting habits made him useful to John Ray and Robert Boyle. After four years in London he travelled through France, spending some time at Paris and Montpellier, and stayed long enough at the University of Orange-Nassau to take his MD degree there in 1683; he was hired as an assistant to prominent physician Thomas Sydenham who gave the young man valuable introductions to practice. He returned to London with a considerable collection of plants and other curiosities, of which the former were sent to Ray and utilised by him for his History of Plants. == Voyage to the Caribbean ==

Sloane was elected to the Royal Society in 1685. • • Sloane married Elizabeth Langley Rose, the widow of Fulke Rose of Jamaica, and daughter of Alderman John Langley, a wealthy heiress of sugar plantations in Jamaica worked by slaves. The couple had three daughters, Mary, Sarah and Elizabeth, and one son, Hans; only Sarah and Elizabeth survived infancy. Sarah married George Stanley of Paultons and Elizabeth married Charles Cadogan, who became 2nd Baron Cadogan. Once back in Britain, income from Sloane's career as a physician and his London property investments, coupled with Elizabeth's inheritance, enabled Sloane to build his substantial collection of natural history artefacts in the following decades. Sloane additionally had investments in the Royal African and South Sea Companies, both of which traded in slaves.) By the 1750s, a Soho grocer named Nicholas Sanders claimed to be selling Sloane's recipe as a medicinal elixir, perhaps making "Sir Hans Sloane's Milk Chocolate" the first brand-name milk chocolate drink. By the nineteenth century, the Cadbury Brothers sold tins of drinking chocolate whose trade cards also invoked Sloane's recipe. == Society physician ==

Sloane started his own practice in 1689 at 3 Bloomsbury Place, London, One critic stated that he was merely interested in the collection of knick-knacks, and another called him the "foremost toyman of his time". Sir Isaac Newton described Sloane as "a villain and rascal" and "a very tricking fellow". Some believed that his true achievement was in making friends in high society and with important political figures, rather than in science. In 1716 Sloane was created a baronet, making him the first medical practitioner to receive a hereditary title. In 1719 he became president of the Royal College of Physicians, holding the office for sixteen years. In 1722 he was appointed physician-general to the army, and in 1727 first physician to George II. He was elected president of Royal College of Physicians in 1719 and served in that role until 1735. He became secretary to the Royal Society in 1693, which led to the criticism of Sloane as a mere "virtuoso". Aside from his service as Royal Physician, Sloane's true achievement during his time at the Royal Society was in acting as a conduit between the worlds of science, politics and high society. Sloane's time in France at the beginning of his career later enabled him to fulfil the role of intermediary between British and French scientists, fostering the sharing of knowledge between the two countries at the height of the Age of Enlightenment. Notables from that period who visited Sloane to view his collection include the Swiss anatomist Albrecht von Haller, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin and Carl Linnaeus. He had been introduced to the concept of inoculation by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in the court of Queen Caroline. == The British Museum and Chelsea Physic Garden ==

. (1730s) in the British Museum , main foyer, British Library Sloane's purchase of the manor of Chelsea, London, in 1712, provided the grounds for the Chelsea Physic Garden. Over his lifetime, Sloane collected over 71,000 objects: books, manuscripts, drawings, coins and medals, plant specimens and others. His great stroke as a collector was to acquire in 1702 (by bequest, conditional on paying of certain debts) the cabinet of curiosities owned by William Courten, who had made collecting the business of his life. When Sloane retired in 1741, his library and cabinet of curiosities, which he took with him from Bloomsbury to his house in Chelsea, had grown to be of unique value. He had acquired the extensive natural history collections of William Courten, Cardinal Filippo Antonio Gualterio, James Petiver, Nehemiah Grew, Leonard Plukenet, the Duchess of Beaufort, Adam Buddle, Paul Hermann, Franz Kiggelaer and Herman Boerhaave. ==Death and legacy==

In his final year, Sir Hans Sloane suffered from a disorder with some paralysis.—intentionally far less than the estimated value of the artefacts, contemporarily estimated at £50,000 () or more according to some sources, and up to £80,000 () or more by others. The bequest was accepted on those terms by an act passed the same year, and the collection, together with George II's royal library, and other objects. The Curators thought that only scholars and the upper class were allowed to see the collection, believing that learning was a privilege that only the upper class had. A life-size statue of Sloane was erected in the town square of Killyleagh, the town in which he was born. The decision came as part of that year's wave of removals of monuments to those who had benefited from slavery. History Ireland contributor Tony Canavan, writing of the decision and observing the fact that the Sloane family had moved to Ireland from Scotland during the Plantation of Ulster (or, more correctly, during the Plantation of Antrim and Down), noted that "the fact that Sloane came from a Scots-Irish family who benefited from a different kind of plantation, following the expulsion of natives and the confiscation of their land, [which seemed] never to have been an issue". ==See also==