Another medicine from an unlikely source: this time a West Indian slave who gained his freedom in late Georgian England.
John Lynch was probably born in about 1747, either as a slave on the island of St Christopher (now St Kitts) in the Caribbean, or in Africa before being kidnapped and transported to the Caribbean on a slave ship. He was then brought to England while still a young man by his owner, John French Lynch, probably in around 1774, and appears never to have returned to the Caribbean.
After the death of John French Lynch, his owner, near London in 1788 John Lynch (who, as was commonplace at the time, acquired his surname from his owner) was formally granted his freedom, along with a stipend of £40 a year (1). Mismanagement of the estate by the executors may mean that the stipend only lasted a few years, or was possibly never paid at all but, regardless, John managed to make his way in the world: in 1791 he appears to have married a cook from the household of Andrew Lynch, brother of John French Lynch and, some time between 1788 and 1812 (twenty four years for which I've been unable to find anything beyond the marriage and some anecdotal details that may or may not be true), started selling medicines of his own invention.
The first really verifiable information after about 1790 comes from newspaper advertisements for John Lynch's medicines published in early 1812, giving an address in Duke Street, St James's, in London, a location he remained at until his death seventeen years later in 1829.
Bottles:
A single example has been recorded to date. It is pale pinkish-brown saltglazed stoneware, cylindrical but slightly tapered towards the base, with rounded sloping shoulders and a downward-tapering flat sided lip. Dimensions are: Total height 192mm; height to shoulder approximately 140mm; width across the base 75mm; width across the widest point of the shoulder 80mm. Its capacity is 490ml, or slightly less than a full pint.
Types recorded to date:
Type 1. PREPARED ONLY / By J. Lynch / 38 Duke St / St James s // - //
Date: c. 1817 – 1822.
Medicines:
Lynch’s advertising and other sources indicate that he sold medicines under a number of different names, which at various times included:
- Lynch’s Aperient;
- Lynch’s Oriental Oil;
- Lynch’s Botanical Oil;
- Lynch’s Vegetable Decoction;
- Lynch’s Botanical Decoction;
- Lynch’s Embrocation;
- Lynch’s Diuretic Decoction for strictures.
There are no conclusive accounts of what any of these may have contained, although reports in the Monthly Gazette of Health in 1819 (2) suggest that they were probably relatively benign (but therapeutically dubious) herbal preparations and coloured vegetable oils (3).
History:
c.1747. John Lynch was born into slavery, probably on the estate of John French Lynch on the island of St Christopher (now St Kitts) in the Caribbean.
1772. June. The Somerset case effectively ended slavery in England (3), having a direct impact upon the status of John Lynch, and all other enslaved people in England, after mid-1772.
Before 1787, and probably before 1774. John Lynch was brought to England from St Christopher by his owner John French Lynch. J. F. Lynch, and probably his “faithful negroe servant” (3) John, lived, permanently or occasionally, at Richmond in Surrey until 1787.
1787. J. F. Lynch, and probably John Lynch, moved from Richmond to Mitcham, also in Surrey, to live with Andrew Lynch, brother of J. F. Lynch. This may have been due to J. F. Lynch suffering from poor health.
1788. July. John French Lynch died at Mitcham, and in his will he formally gave John Lynch his freedom and a stipend of £40 per year for life (1):
“I direct my said executors [to pay] an annuity of forty pounds which I hereby give to my faithful negroe servant John Lynch for the term of his natural life [and] I give to the said John Lynch his freedom if not already obtained – and I also give devise and bequeath to him for the term of his natural life his house on my Estate [ … ] in the Island of St Christopher in America”.
In spite of the Somerset Case, Lynch still risked being re-enslaved if he left England to travel to any colonies where slavery persisted, without having first been formally granted his freedom. It was thus necessary for J. F. Lynch, in his will, to explicitly grant John his freedom to enable him to safely return to St Christopher, if he wished to claim the house there that was bequeathed to him.
I haven't been able to find any evidence that John did ever return to the Caribbean, and there is evidence that he spent most, if not all, of the rest of his life in Surrey and London. It’s also unclear whether he ever received the £40 annual stipend. An 1803 court case brought against the executors of the will by another of the beneficiaries suggests that mismanagement of the estate may have led to discontinuation of the stipend during the 1790s, if it was ever paid at all.
1788-1811. During this period Lynch’s whereabouts are unclear. It’s possible that he lived at Duppa’s Hill in Croyden for at least some of this time, and that he first started selling medicines there (4). An 1812 account suggests that he may have started his ‘medical’ career as early as 1788 (5).
1791. May. John Lynch married Mary Banks at Mitcham. Mary was probably a domestic servant, possibly a cook, in the house of Andrew Lynch, brother of John French Lynch.
1812. The earliest advertisements found so far for Lynch’s medicines date to February 1812 (6), by which time he was in his mid-60s. His address was 4 Prince’s Court, Duke Street, St James's, in London. He probably occupied the same house for the rest of his life. Although the house number given in his advertising changed at least twice during that time it may have been due to changes in street numbering rather than changes in location.
Known addresses, 1812 – 1829:
c. 1812 – early 1817: 4 Prince’s Court, Duke Street.
1817 – early 1822: 38 Duke Street (7).
1822 – February 1829: 44 Duke Street.
Advertising, 1812 – 1829. From 1812 to 1816 Lynch’s advertising mostly claimed cures for asthma, bilious compaints and consumption. By 1816 this had changed quite dramatically to almost – but not quite – exclusively emphasise cures for strictures “of the urethra and rectum”, and piles (8). This continued until his death in 1829.
Throughout this time advertisements only appeared in London newspapers, and were always small: text only, and of between four and 20 lines long.
1817. An advertisement in the London Morning Post (7) names two of Lynch’s medicines as “Vegetable and Botanical Decoction“, available in pints for 7s.6d. and half pints for 4s.6d.
1818. Lynch initiated court proceedings to recover unpaid fees for his medicines from a customer who owed him over £50 (from a total bill of around £200). The case failed to come to court, and Lynch did not receive the money (9).
1819. The July and September issues of The Monthly Gazette of Health included critical accounts, apparently prompted by Lynch’s failed 1818 effort to sue for unpaid fees, reveal that a £5 parcel of medicine included “a decoction of vegetables [or] simple herbs”, to be taken orally, and “two bottles of oil, one of which was titled Oriental Oil, and the other Botanical Oil”, to be applied internally to the urethra and rectum by syringe.
1822. Lynch published an 84-page pamphlet: A Practical Treatise on Nervous, Bilious, and Inflammatory Affections, with a New Method of Curing Strictures without the Use of Bougie or Caustic. With an Appendix on the Diseases of Women and Children.
1823. The Monthly Gazette of Health again tackled Lynch, this time under the heading “Quackery” (4), revealing details of demands made by Lynch for payment of unpaid bills in 1818 (this is probably another version of events already recounted in the same publication in 1819). This provides information on the prices of individual bottles of medicine, rather than an entire £5 package:
- Small bottles of Aperient: 4s.6d. each.
- Large bottles of Botanical Oil: £1.10s. each.
- Large bottles of Oriental Oil: £1.10s. each.
- Large bottles of emulsion (this is the only mention seen of Lynch selling an ‘emulsion’): £1.10s. each.
- Bottles of decoction (no size specified so presumably only one size, in contrast to the two sizes advertised in 1817): 11s. each.
1828. 30th December. Last advertisement so far recorded for Lynch’s medicines (10).
1829. February. John Lynch died at the age of 82. He was buried at St Stephen’s Roman Catholic church at Moorfields in London.
Unlike those of many other proprietors, with the possible exception of 'Lynch's Embrocation', John Lynch’s medicines appear to have died with him (11).
Bottles described in advertising or elsewhere but not yet recorded:
Lynch clearly used bottles of more than one size. An 1817 advertisement refers to 'pint' and 'half pint' bottles, while the 1823 list in The Monthly Gazette of Health refers to ‘large’ and ‘small’ bottles, and bottles for several different medicines. The single known bottle is approximately one pint capacity, and althoug it bears Lynch’s name and address it doesn't carry any medicine name, so it could have been, and probably was, used for any of the medicines sold in one pint quantities.
It’s quite likely that glass bottles were used at some point in the 17+ year period (possibly as long as 40 years, 1788 – 1828) in which Lynch sold his medicines, but no glass examples have been recorded. Given the large size of the stoneware example it’s possible that all or most glass bottles used were standard unmarked black glass ‘wine’ bottles. It’s also possible that many or even most of the bottles used by Lynch, whether of glass or stoneware, were unmarked.
Additional discoveries of marked or labelled bottles attributable to Lynch, or of additional documentary evidence, may begin to clarify these questions.
Notes and References.
1. Probate copy of the will of John French Lynch, dated 30th July 1788. UK Public Record Office Catalogue Reference: Prob 11/1168. Image 130; 131.
2. The Monthly Gazette of Health or, Popular Medical, Dietetic, and General Philosophy Journal. No 43, Vol IV. 1819. Published 1820.
3. The actual significance of the Somerset case is still debated, but for a useful account see Cotter, W.R. (1994) The Somerset Case and the Abolition of Slavery in England, in: History, The Journal of the Historical Association 79: 255, pp31-56. The impacts of the case were felt far beyond England, and may even have been a contributory factor in bringing about the American War of Independence. As an aside, an interesting and rather different route to freedom from slavery was provided before the Somerset case, and afterwards, to slaves not resident in England, by the Royal Navy.
4. The Monthly Gazette of Health, Vol VIII, No 93 (September 1823) pp 661-662.
5. The Sporting Magazine, July 1812, Vol 40, No 138, p184: “One of the Daily papers lately contained the following specimen of Modern Quackery:- “Bilious Afections [sic] cured – Mr. John Lynch, the West Indian, who for 24 years [i.e. since 1788] has been honoured with the distinguished patronage of the British Public, will undertake with any gentleman to cure three persons to one, who may be afflicted with the above malady.”
6. London Courier and Evening Gazette. February 7th 1812. Accessed via britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, 27th September 2018.
7. Rate books for 1818 and 1819 give a 40 Duke Street address, but this is not reflected in Lynch’s advertising.
8. The Morning Post, 26th August 1816. Accessed via britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, 6th September 2015.
9. The Monthly Gazette of Health, Vol VIII, No 91 (July 1823) pp 590-591.
10. The Public Ledger and Daily Advertiser, 30th December 1828. Accessed via britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk, 27th September 2018.
11. 'Lynch's Embrocation': References to this medicine started to appear in various publications including pharmacopoeias and druggists' recipe books in the 1820s, and may be based upon the Embrocation sold by John Lynch. Rennie's Supplement to the Pharmacopoeias of London, Edinburgh and Paris (1829) describes it as "a nostrum consisting of nothing but olive oil coloured with alkanet root, and scented with essence of bergamot and oil of rosemary".
© Jeremy Kemp, 2020.
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