John Dunn (1791 - 1851)

Biographical notes

John Dunn was a founder member of the Scarborough Philosophical Society and was the physician of the father of British geology, William Smith during his latter years in Scarborough. Born in Norwich in 1791, John was the son of a non-conformist tailor of that city and educated at the Grammar School. The family must have been reasonably wealthy as both John and his brother Henry trained to become surgeons. After initial training John worked as a surgeon for the Royal Cumberland Volunteers and by 1814 had a practice in Pickering. John Dunn published widely on the subject of surgery and in 1819 when a vacancy arose in an established practice in Scarborough due to the retirement of a senior partner, he moved there.

In 1820 Dunn, William Smith and Thomas Hinderwell (a Scarborough antiquarian) along with a small group of other interested locals, discussed the possibility of the foundation of a Philosophical Society and Museum in Scarborough, but it was felt that the time was not right. Eventually in 1827 Scarborough Philosophical Society was founded with Dunn as the first secretary and in 1829 the Museum opened its doors to the public. For many years Dunn was an active member of the Society donating many geological specimens to the museum until his sudden death, on returning from treating a patient, on the 8th January 1851. Sadly his youngest daughter Jane was born less than a week later.

Residence

Additional links

• Natstand family document - pedigree of the wider Dunn family.
  
  
• John Swaby's links to slave ownership
  from UCL- Legacies of British Slave-ownership

Timeline

1814 : Publication	Dunn, J. 1814. Mr. Dunn on Remarkable Abstinence. Medical and Physical Journal. 30 103-109, Phillips, London. This gives Dunn's address as York with a date of 1813 July 4, and mentions his time with the Royal Cumberland Militia. [Google Books]
1816 : Publication	Dunn, J. 1816. Remarks on the Practice of a Bone-Setter. Medical Repository Monthly Journal and Review. 6, 102-105. Shury, London. [Google Books]
1817 : Publication	Dunn, J, 1816. A fatal Case of Hydatids, with enlarged Kidneys; and an Observation on the Buffy Appearance on Arterial Blood. Medical Repository Monthly Journal and Review. 7 464-466. Shury, London. [Google Books]
1817 : Publication	Dunn, J, 1817. Suggestions for the relief of the sick poor, and the improvement of the medical profession, in Great Britain, Cooper, Kirkbymoorside. [Internet Archive]
1818 : Publication	Dunn, J. 1818. Case of Typhus, with Remarks. Medical Repository Monthly Journal and Review. 10 116-123. Moyes, London. [Google Books]
1819 : Publication	Dunn, J. 1819. Case of a Presentation of a bag of Water after delivery, unconnected with plurality of children. Medico-chirurgical Transactions, 10 396-399. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, London. [Google Books]
1819 : Scarborough	Cooper, S. 1822. A Dictionary of Practical Surgery 4th Ed. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, London. p76. In a letter received by me from Mr. Dunn, surgeon at Scarborough, and dated June 3, 1819, he tells me "My predecessor Mr. J. Wilson, the late partner of Mr. Travis, amputated a limb in 1792, or 93, and cut off the ligatures close to the arteries, and no trouble ensued. He did this from the recommendation of Dr. Balcombe, of York, who had seen the method practised on the continent." [This is the earliest reference found to his presence in Scarborough.]
1822 : Publication	Dunn, J. 1822. Case of Amputation of Part of the Tarsus and Metatarsus, and Preservation of the Shape and Usefulness of the Foot. The Medico-chirurgical Review, and Journal of Medical Science. 2 873-874. Hayden, Westminster. [Google Books]
1822 : Publication	Dunn, J. 1822. Observations on Compound Fractures. Communicated by Samuel Cooper. Medico-chirurgical Transactions, 12.1 167-181. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, London. [Google Books]
1824 : Publication	Dunn, J. 1824. Description of the Whirlwind at Scarborough on the 24th June 1823, Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, 10 11-18. Archibald Constable & Co., Edinburgh. [Google Books]
1831 : Publication	Dunn, J. 1831. On a large species of Plesiosaurus in the Scarborough Museum. Proceedings of the Geological Society, London; 1 336-337. [Google Books]
1833 : Publication	Dunn, J. 1833. Case of Ruptured Uterus during Parturition, followed by Internal Abscess and eventual Recovery, so as to bring forth another full-grown Child fifteen months afterwards. Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal. 30, 72-77. Black, Edinburgh. [Google Books]
1838 : Publication	Dunn, J. and Savile, J. 1938. Account of a Case in which a Child was expelled from the Womb after interment of the Mother. Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal. 50 533-535. Black. Edinburgh. [Google Books]
1839 : Publication	Dunn, J. 1839. Case of Dislocation of the Left Femur on the Pubes. London Medical Gazette, New Series 2 275-276. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, London. [Google Books]
1840 : Publication	Dunn, J. 1840. On the Vital Statistics of Scarborough. Notices and Abstracts of Communications to the British Association for the Advancement of Science at the Glasgow meeting, August 1840. 167-168. Murray, London. [Google Books]

¹ Transcription reproduced with kind permission of The British Newspaper Archive