| Authorised form of name | Dimsdale; Thomas (1712 - 1800) |
| Dates | 1712 - 1800 |
| Date of birth | 06 or 29 May 1712 |
| Date of death | 30 December 1800 |
| DatesAndPlaces | Burial:
Quakers' burial-ground at Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire |
| Activity | Education:
Pupil to his father; St Thomas' Hospital, London; MD (1761, King's College, Aberdeen)
Career:
Set up practice in Hertford (1834); served as a volunteer medical assistant to the Duke of Cumberland's army in the Rebellion (1745); went to Russian and inoculated Empress Catherine and her son, Grand Duke Paul, against small pox, for which he received £12,000 and was made a baron; returned to England and opened a banking house in Cornhill, London (retired from this 1776); on the instruction of George III, inoculated Omai [Mai], one of the first Pacific Islanders to visit Europe (1774); MP for Hertford (1780 until his retirement 1790); went to Russia to incoculate Grand Dukes Alexander and Constantine (1781)
Memberships:
Bath Agricultural Society
|
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 16/03/1769 |
| Other Royal Society activity | Admitted 11 May 1769 |
| Relationships | 4th son of John Dimsdale, surgeon, and his wife Susan, daughter of Thomas Bowyer of Albury Hall, Hertfordshire; married 1) (13 July 1739) daughter of Nathanael Brassey of Roxwell (she died 1745?); their 2nd son was Nathaniel Dimsdale (FRS 1805); 2) (17 June 1746) Anne, daughter of John Iles "a relation of his first wife" (Gentleman's Magazine); 3) (3 November 1779) Elizabeth, daughter of his cousin, Joseph Dimsdale of Bishop's Stortford |
| Source | Sources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB; DQB
Ward, L. 2022. 'The Empress and the English Doctor: How Catherine the Great defied a deadly virus' (Oneworld Publications)
References:
John H Appleby, 'The Royal Society and the Tartar Lamb' in NR 1997 vol 51 pp 23-34
Notes:
DNB provides alternative birth date of 29 May 1712; this date also in History of Parliament : House of Commons 1754-1790 (1964). |
| Code | NA7316 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| MS/391/133 | Bond of Thomas Dimsdale, Baron Dimsdale, to the Treasurer of the Royal Society | 11 May 1769 |
| L&P/8/10 | Letter, 'Concerning the spontaneous firing of a mixture of lamp-black and linseed oil' from Samuel Greig to Thomas Dimsdale | 1 September 1781 |
| IM/001153 | Dimsdale, Thomas | nd |
| EC/1768/32 | Dimsdale, Thomas: certificate of election to the Royal Society | 1768 |