John Coakley Lettsom, physician, with his family, in the garden of Grove Hill, Camberwell.

[1786?]

1 painting : oil on canvas ; canvas 71 x 90.6 cm

John Coakley Lettsom (1744-1815) was a Quaker and an important figure of the English Enlightenment, the movement in the 18th century towards freedom of thought and equality of rights for all mankind. Born in the Virgin Islands, his father Edward Lettsom owned cotton and sugar plantations on Little Jost Van Dyke, Green Island, Sandy Island and Cane-garden Bay. Upon the death of his father Lettsom inherited some property and the ownership of 50 enslaved people living and working on the estates, whom he freed. In 1808 his daughter-in-law, Ruth Lettsom formerly Georges (born Hodge), bequeathed him her estates on the Virgin Islands, which included hundreds of enslaved people. The bequest was contested by her children, but ruled in favour of Lettsom shortly before his death. Lettsom was apprenticed as a surgeon-apothecary in Yorkshire before practising as a surgeon-dresser in London. He practiced in the Virgin Islands for a period, before returning to London to undertake medical training and establishing a practice in Basinghall Street. He used his energies and income in numerous philanthropic projects, such as the Aldersgate Street Dispensary, which gave free medical care; soup kitchens; the founding of the Medical Society of London to enable communication between physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries; and the Royal Humane Society, which was concerned with saving people from drowning. He also promoted charity through his many essays on slum housing, alcohol abuse and the problems of blind people. He was also a keen gardener, and the painting shows him in the garden of his house in Camberwell, with his wife and five of his children.

Select images of this work were taken by the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum: WT/D/1/20/1/7/54

Wellcome Collection 45716i

J.J. Abraham, Lettsom, London 1933, pp. 307, 449 (as by Zoffany)

Brian Green, Around Dulwich, Dulwich Village 1982, pp. 11-12

C.U.M. Smith and Robert Arnott, The genius of Erasmus Darwin, Aldershot 2005, p. 56 (reproduced)

Entry for Dr Joan Coakley Lettsom on the database of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146649667

Entry for Ruth Lettsom on the database of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146649669

Christopher Wright et al., British and Irish paintings in public collections, New Haven and London: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2006, p. 157

Kate Teltscher, 'A guide to the apothecary's garden [review of Clare Hickman, 'The doctor's garden: medicine, science, and horticulture in Britain']', The spectator, 29 January 2022

Zachary Dorner, 'Who cares about care?', The Collation, 13 February 2024, https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/who-cares-about-care/

Exhibited at the Medical Society of London, May 2003 - June 2022

Currently on display in the Wellcome Collection Library

This work is untitled: the title has been supplied by the cataloguer.