J R Coll Physicians Edinb 2010; 40:378 Notable Fellows doi:10.4997/JRCPE.2010.421 © 2010 Royal College of Physicians of

Sir Stuart Threipland (1716–1805)

Here is a College president honoured as a physician but also remembered for his colourful past. In a sense his name said it all: Stuart, spelt in that way rather than ‘Stewart’, was a mark of his family’s devotion to the Jacobite cause – having a Catholic monarch back on the throne.

The Threipland family originated in the Borders, but around 1600 they moved to Perthshire, buying the Fingask estate and its castle in the foothills of the Highlands, between Perth and Kinross. When the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion started Sir David Threipland immediately joined the Earl of Mar and his men, hoping to Figure 1 Threipland’s medicine chest, which was carried by him throughout reinstall a Stuart on the throne. the 1745 Rebellion, is thought to have been given to him by Prince Charles He was captured by government himself. It contains 160 remedies and numerous miniature instruments. troops but escaped into exile (although some have claimed that he died in captivity). In 1716 his that a medicine chest displayed in Physicians of Edinburgh had its first wife had a premature son whom, the College (Figure 1) was probably home. His practice thrived and not surprisingly, they called Stuart. the one carried by Threipland while within a few years he moved to Soon after, the family were permitted serving Prince Charles. Bishop’s Land in the High Street, to return, not as owners but as where he was attended by a butler, humble tenants of their old home. Together Threipland and Prince a footman, a coachman and his boy Charles managed to escape and and several maids. He lived in Stuart Threipland eventually entered make their way to Badenoch where Edinburgh during the glorious years the University of Edinburgh to study they hid in a cave. Here Threipland of the Enlightenment and the medicine. In 1737, he helped to also cared for the clan chieftain flowering of our College, of which found the student organisation later Cameron of Lochiel who had he was president from 1766 to 1770. known as the Royal Medical Society serious ankle injuries. Dressed as a and later served as its president. Presbyterian minister (although in As he approached retirement In 1778 the society was granted fact he was an Episcopalian), Threipland repurchased the Fingask a Royal Charter, the only student Threipland reached Edinburgh estate, his family’s old home, and body ever to be so honoured. where he changed his dress to that restored it to its former glory After qualifying Stuart started of a bookseller’s apprentice. He before he died aged 89. The estate a practice in Edinburgh. eventually reached France about exists to this day and is again the time Prince Charles returned owned by the Threipland family. The year 1745 saw Prince Charles to exile there. Threipland’s devotion to the Stuarts Edward Stuart, the son of the 1715 never faltered, demonstrated by his rebellion’s leader, raise his standard The 1747 amnesty allowed continuing to toast ‘the King across in another attempt to regain the Threipland to return to , the water’. throne for a Stuart. Threipland although his fellow medical officer and his elder brother, David, at Culloden, Archibald Cameron, Derek Doyle immediately joined the Jacobite did not fare so well and was, in Obituaries Editor, RCPE army. David soon lost his life in the spite of the pleadings of Professor battle of , while Stuart Alexander Monro primus, hanged at Further reading became the senior medical officer Tyburn in London. • Kaufman MH. Sir Stuart Threipland throughout the campaign, which (1716–1805), physician-in-chief to Prince history during the spanned as far south as and Threipland married and made his Jacobite uprising of 1745. J Med Biogr then back to the disaster of new home in Edinburgh’s Fountain 2004;12:164–71. Culloden in 1746. Fellows will recall Close where the Royal College of

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