Image ID: 22082

Spencer Timothy Hall

Sutton in Ashfield
England

Known as 'The Sherwood Forester', Spencer Timothy Hall was born in Sutton in Ashfield in 1812 and died in Blackpool in 1885. Amongst his writings were 'Days in Derbyshire', 'Peak and the Plain', 'Remarkable people', 'The Foresters Offering' and 'Mesmeric Experiences'. Mr Hall was for a short time a lay assistant to Dr. George Dunn at Doncaster St James's Homeopathic Hospital (1850s-c80). Hall was the son of Samuel Hall (1769-1852) a Quaker cobbler and Eleanor Spencer, a Derbyshire shepherdess and milkmaid. He was a persistent truant as a child, but eventually became apprenticed to a printer in Nottingham and then founded, about 1830, a scientific institution in the town at which he read essays. He mixed with the literati of the town (chiefly the famous Howitt literary family of Nottingham) through whom he met Wordsworth (1770-1850), Alaric Watts (1797-1864), the London poet and journalist, and Allan Cunningham (1784-1842), the Scottish poet and man of letters. Hall published verses before setting up as a printer and bookseller in his own right in York. This covered most of the 1840s. Further literary success and prose publications followed. He then became interested in phrenology and lectured upon it. He became the first Honorary Secretary of the Sheffield Phrenological Society. Further publications followed and he obtained an MA and PhD from University of Tubingen. 'He was a foreign graduate, having received the diploma of Doctor of Medicine and Philosophy from the University of Tubingen' (Manchester Guardian, 28 April 1885). However, in the 1867 Homeopathic Medical Directory his entry on page 32 appears, along with four others, under the heading 'Practitioners Holding Degrees..Not Recognised as Legal Qualifications In England'. His qualifications appear as 'MD Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati; PhD MD Tubingen, Principal of Windermere Hydropathic Institution' and his Address 'Bowness, Windermere, Westmoreland'. About 1852 he became a homeopathic doctor and published Homeopathy A Testimony in the same year. He had dabbled earlier not only in phrenology but also Mesmerism and published items about that subject. He eventually settled in Kendal and was in charge of a hydropathic institution there. But his affairs and his health were giving constant concern and he ended up as a pauper in Blackpool where he died in poverty. He died in April 1885; Obituary in the Manchester Guardian 28 & 30-4-1885. Apart from numerous literary and travel works, Dr. Hall published 'Mesmeric Experiences' (1845), 'Homeopathy, a Testimony' (1851) and 'Homeopathy and Hydrotherapy, Their Harmony and Efficacy' (1865). (information from www. homeoint.org)

Date: 1910

Organisation Reference: NCCW001587

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