Roy Porter (1946-2002)
Forwarded to HISTNEUR-L from CADUCEUS-L. --Russell Johnson --- Begin Forwarded Message --- Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 15:38:42 -0000 From: "Harold J. Cook" [fgcook@btinternet.com] Subject: Roy Porter To: caduceus-l@list.umaryland.edu Roy Porter, well-known historian of medicine, science, and the Enlightenment, died on 3 March 2002. Roy Porter, the popular and well-regarded historian of medicine, science, and the Enlightenment, died on 3 March 2002. Roy was well known to the public for his frequent appearances on radio and television in the UK, culminating in a recent one-hour television program on the Enlightenment in Britain, which was based on his book, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (2000). He also authored The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity and over 200 other books and articles; he most recently published Madness: A Brief History (2002), which has also been reviewed widely and appreciatively. Roy was born on the last day of 1946 as the son of a jeweller, growing up in south London (New Cross Gate) until in 1959 his family moved to the pebble-dash suburb of Norwood, five miles away. He describes his as a happy childhood despite the roughness of the neighbourhood, and he remained a committed Londoner throughout his life. (He includes a few autobiographical remarks in the preface to his typically wide-ranging and energetic London: A Social History, 1994). His English teacher at Wilson’s school in Camberwell, David Rees, awakened him to the life of the mind. Because of Roy's obvious intelligence, he obtained a scholarship to Cambridge and entered the history tripos, becoming a member of a remarkable group of students who studied with Jack Plumb and Quentin Skinner, graduating B.A. in 1968 from Christ's College (first class honours with distinction). He continued at Christ's and at Churchill College, taking his PhD from Cambridge in 1974. In 1979 he joined the Academic Unit of the Institute for the History of Medicine at the Wellcome Trust, and rose to the rank of Professor at University College London, where he remained until taking early retirement in September 2001. At his death he was Professor Emeritus and had been nominated for the distinction of Honorary Fellow of UCL. Roy commanded several fields: the history of geology, London, 18th-century British ideas and society, medicine, madness, quackery, patients and practitioners, literature and art, on which subjects (and others) he published over 200 books and articles. He much appreciated that famous 18th-century Londoner, Samuel Johnson, and admired (and wrote about) the work of Edward Gibbon. He was clearly happy in retirement at St. Leonard's, near Hastings, where he spent time working his allotment as well as sometimes catching the train to London; he was hoping to learn how to play the trumpet or saxophone (stories vary) and had started to travel the world. Roy was of course also engaged in the planning for many other works of the mind. All who knew him (including several former wives) continued to appreciate his huge love of life and enormous energy, plentiful jewellery and stubble of a beard, and frank but generous criticism. He is survived by his mother, and by his partner, Natsu Hattori, to whom he dedicated his last books, calling her "the love of my life." Harold J. Cook, Professor and Director Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL --- End Forwarded Message ---