Henry Kipping: surgeon and apothecary

In the days when Henry Kipping was making a living as a surgeon, Brighton was beginning to shed its reputation as ‘a poor fishing town’ to assume its new identity as a Georgian health resort. The map of Yeakell and Gardner, published in 1779, six years before Henry Kipping died, shows the limited extent of the town. West Street, where Kipping and his family lived and ran the business, was at this time the westerly boundary of the town. Notably absent is any development of Hove, Kemp Town, and very little of what we would now refer to as the seafront.

Kipping arrived in Brighton in about 1755, after completing his apprenticeship with Josiah Higden, a successful and probably wealthy London apothecary. Surgeons at this time, trained as apprentices, in order to gain the freedom of the Company of Surgeons, and were referred to as ‘Mister’. Georgian physicians however, were usually university educated, and referred to as ‘Doctor’. This convention survived the later elevation of surgeons to a higher status and to some extent still survives. Georgian Brighton attracted a few physicians, such as Dr Richard Russell, and his successor, Dr. Anthony Relhan, but treating the sick and injured fell largely to the surgeons, particularly in winter, when physicians would return to London. In November 1779, Henry Kipping’s neighbour, Henry Thrale suffered a stroke at his home in West Street.

Hester Thrale wrote in her diary:
...On Monday last the 22 Nov he [Henry Thrale] complain’d of the headache, ate no Dinner and looked most dreadfully – Pepys^[i]Sir Lucas Pepys, The Thrales’ physician was gone to London, so I had nobody to consult but Kipping the Apothecary who modestly and wisely would do nothing but advise me to make haste with my Master to Streatham.^[ii]Thraliana: The diary of Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale 1776-1809 Vol 1. p408. ed K.C.Balderston. Oxford 1942

So there were medical emergencies where the surgeons could offer only advice, but no treatment, but Henry Kipping and his fellow surgeons became adept at responding to a situation that occurred fairly frequently in Brighton: that of drowning. The ‘Society for the recovery of persons apparently drowned’ was formed in London in 1774, and published practical guidelines on how to respond. Henry Kipping sent the Society one account of his success, which was published in the Society’s transactions when it had become The Royal Humane Society:

A. B. a Physician, upwards of 70 years of age, was under water about seven minutes. As I had the distance of four miles to ride, it must take thirty minutes, or more, from the messenger’s setting out and my arrival at the house.-His face and lips were livid, body universally cold, and other strong appearances of dissolution.-The usual means were employed; and, in about fifteen minutes, the circulation returned. In about twenty minutes more, evident signs of life appeared, by a gradual return of warmth, &c. and soon afterwards my patient became sensible, and expressed a strange surprise at what the people about him were doing. In about an hour, I got down some warm sack-whey, and still employed the resuscitative process. During the whole day, the sea water, which had been received originally into the stomach, was discharged in great quantities by the renal glands. Brighton, July 9.1775 H. Kipping, ^[iii]Transactions of The Royal Humane Society 1795

According to Sussex Weekly Advertiser, the incident took place at Saltdean Gap, and the victim treated at Rottingdean. Henry Kipping, being an accomplished horseman, prided himself on having made the distance from West Street to Rottingdean at great speed. I have not been able to establish who the elderly physician was, as his name was not published. Nobody would have wanted to publicise that the sea the physicians strongly recommended for the improving of life could also end it so suddenly.

Henry Kipping became known as a Brighton ‘character’. Fanny Burney, when visiting the Thrales in 1779 wrote in her diary:

..This morning after our arrival our first visit was from Mr Kipping, the apothecary, a character so curious that Foote ^[iv]Samuel Foote, dramatist and actor died Brighton 1777 designed him for his next piece, before he knew he had already written his last. He is a prating, good-humoured old gossip, who runs on in an as incoherent and unconnected a style of discourse as Rose Fuller,^[v] Rose Fuller was a Sussex landowner and gentleman well-known to fashionable visitors to Brighton though not so tonish. ^[vi]Diary and letters of Madame d’Arblay 1778-1840. ed Charlotte Frances Barrett. Colburn, London 1842

J.D. Bishop also noted that Kipping was celebrated for his gentlemanly accomplishments:

‘Dr Kipping was an ardent sportsman and expert swordsman. Fighting once an impromptu duel in West Street where he resided, with an officer who had insulted him, he took in the encounter the officer’s sword, keeping it over a week much to the latter’s chagrin..’

By 1770 Kipping was wealthy enough to own a race horse which he raced at Lewes, and beat that of Samuel Shergold for a prize of ten guineas.^[vii]Sussex Weekly Advertiser March 5th 1770 p.4

On 22^nd April, 1785, Hester Thrale wrote to her daughter:

“Sophy tells me poor Kipping is sick; God bless my Soul Ma’am, why now these Things will sometimes — but if the Dr would come down indeed, but then the Time o’ Year & that — & besides now you know Ma’am the Dr. God bless him — but he is just the same as ever for the matter of that. &c.

Poor Kip! I hope he will recover.”^[viii]Hester Lynch Piozzi [formerly Mrs Thrale; née Salusbury] to Hester Maria Elphinstone, Viscountess Keith [née Thrale]. Electronic Enlightenment Scholarly Edition of Correspondence Bodleian Library.

Henry Kipping died in September and was buried at St.Nicholas, Brighton.

A white marble memorial tablet in the church records the members of his family. At his death, Kipping provided for his wife and four surviving children. As a result of his inheriting family land in Hadlow Kent, successive marriage settlements with Elizabeth Friend of Newtimber, Susannah Bedell of Falmer, and Anna Blaker of Portslade, plus the success of his surgeon’s business in Brighton, Henry Kipping died a wealthy man. He was particularly careful to make provision for the care of his daughter, Anne, who was ‘unhappily disordered in her mind’ and ensured that his executor, Nathaniel Blaker, his brother in law, would be responsible for her after the death of her mother. His son, Henry Kipping junior, continued the surgeon’s business in West Street in partnership with Walter Barrett and John Pankhurst, but in 1803 Henry Kipping junior died, aged 25. William Kipping, the only surviving son of Henry senior did not train as a surgeon and entered the property business. Harry Blaker, probably a nephew of Anna Kipping, was one of the new generation of surgeons, being one of the original Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons at its founding in 1807. He occupied the Kipping family house at 33,West Street, and his widow, Sarah Arabella Blaker was still living there when she died in 1864. Harry Blaker had been surgeon to the Royal Family and one of the first surgeons at the new Royal Sussex County Hospital. And so, Henry Kipping’s legacy lived on in Brighton into the 19^th century, which saw the acceleration of developments in medicine, provided both by private clinicians, and public health bodies.