Robert Willan and his kinsmen.

A. THE ANCESTRY AND SOCIAL BACKGROUND OF ROBERT WILLAN, THE DERMATOLOGIST IN THE spring of 1812, the year of Napoleon's ill-fated venture into Russia, Richard Willan, a gentleman farmer in Yorkshire, received a letter from Madeira. The letter, dated 14 April, came by Penzance and Kendal, and it took four weeks to reach its destination at the Hill, in Marthwaite near Sedbergh, where Richard lived. It related the sad news of the death of his younger brother, Robert Willan, whose pioneer work on dermatology was widely acclaimed.' Three months later, Richard Willan received another letter. This time it was from the dermatologist Dr. Thomas Bateman, to whom Robert Willan was "my much valued preceptor, colleague and friend", and he wrote to enlist Richard's help in the "memoir of his talents and character" which he was preparing for publication. He asked particularly for details of Robert Willan's early life and studies.2 It seems likely that Richard Willan responded to this request, and that the information on the early life of his brother which Bateman included in his memoir came from him. Bateman recorded that Robert Willan's father resided at the Hill, now home of his eldest son, Richard, and that he had enjoyed "an extensive medical reputation and practice".3 Significantly, Bateman in his text did not state that Robert Willan's father held the degree of M.D., but the information was added in an editorial footnote that Robert Willan Senior graduated M.D. at Edinburgh in 1745, and had published an inaugural thesis entitled 'De qualitatibus aeris'. This identification of Robert Willan's father as an Edinburgh graduate has been erroneously followed since 1812 by all writers who have referred to Robert Willan the dermatologist and his supposed father,' whom Munk's Roll describes as "Robert Willan, M.D., the Elder".5 Recent analysis of the genealogy of the Willan family, however, reveals that Robert Willan the Elder, M.D. of Edinburgh, could not have been the father of the dermatologist, for after his graduation in Edinburgh in 1745, he went to work in Scarborough and from there, still a bachelor, moved to Philadelphia in 1748.