JAMES GREGORIE, 1674–1733
JAMES GREGORIE, 1707–1755
‘There’s an old University town
Between the Don and the Dee,
Looking over the grey sand dunes,
Looking out on the cold North Sea.’
—DR W. C. SMITH.
After her husband’s sudden death[5] Mrs James Gregorie returned to
Aberdeen. She did not wish to live in Edinburgh, which was now so full
of sad memories for her, and in the streets of which she had not had
time to become more than a wayfarer. She had shared Professor Gregorie’s
brilliant popularity, but the round of gaiety had brought them intimate
acquaintances rather than friends, and in her desolation her heart
turned to the home of her childhood, and back to the more kindly north
she took her three children, her two little girls and James about whom
this chapter is written. Thus it came that this boy was brought up, like
the generation before him, at the Grammar School of Aberdeen.
Footnote 5:
Professor James Gregorie. _Cf._ Chapter III.
It was a good school, and did much for its boys, beating education into
them if they would not have it otherwise, and of such discipline little
Gregorie, who was no exception to the fiery family temper, no doubt had
his share. He passed from school to Aberdeen University and later to
Edinburgh, but when he inclined to become a doctor, it was decided that
he should go abroad and get a French degree, an arrangement to which he
acceded with joy, and in 1696 at the age of twenty-two he set out for a
time on the continent. Once away from home, with no one to consider but
himself, he turned to what was really the centre of greatest interest in
Flanders—the camp of William III. Merry were the days he passed there
and full of excitement, so that perhaps there was one person who was
only half glad when the Peace of Ryswick brought the war in Flanders to
an end.
But it was better for his work that he should go further afield. On
therefore he went, lingering first at Utrecht, then at Paris before he
reached Rheims, where he secured his degree in September 1698. How much
study Gregorie put into these years it is impossible to ascertain.
Medicine, and more especially surgery, were pretty barbaric arts in
those days, but this student, it should be remembered, was always a
Gregorie, and could not but learn.
Just before he came back to England he spent a few weeks in the French
camp, and after this he accepted an invitation to take a practice at
Chelmsford, Essex. But alas! James Gregorie found that he could not
settle down to a country life, and so to the regret of his patients he
took a hurried farewell of them, and went back to that town from which
his forbears had come—to the grey city ‘looking out on the cold North
Sea.’
There is no place in the world to be compared with the old mother city
of Aberdeen for the love in which her children hold her. Wherever they
go she is still their home, and from between her guardian rivers she
watches her sons as they go forth and is glad over their success. So it
was in the past, so is it now, and so may it be while the world lasts.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century Aberdeen was by no means a
dull place, and indeed Dr Gregorie, one suspects, may sometimes have
wished it to be duller, as for example when Rob Roy during the brief
time of his success was raising recruits for the Jacobite cause amongst
his clansmen there. The Earl of Mar, into whose hands the perfidy of
Montrose had thrown Rob Roy, had requested him to bring as many of his
clansmen into the Stuart camp as he could muster. While he was occupied
with this task, he lived with Dr Gregorie, for, however much the
physician may have deplored his connection with that too notorious
person, he could never afford to neglect him; and the charm of the
Gregorie household so fell upon the big, warm-hearted outlaw, that in a
burst of kindness and enthusiasm he offered to take Dr Gregorie’s little
son and ‘mak a man o’ him.’[6] Rob Roy thought him far too good to waste
upon doctoring, and if the sunny child had got his way, he would have
followed the cateran in that delicious life of adventure which he
painted—a life of hunting and fighting and success.
Footnote 6:
Scene imitated by Scott, in Bailie Nicol Jarvie’s offer to take Rob’s
sons James and Robert to apprentice.—_Rob Roy_, Ch. xxxiv.
But Dr Gregorie was much alarmed; he must not offend his cousin, not
only because he loved him, but because they were all alike quick in
anger, and a cold answer might have been answered by yet colder steel.
He could not trouble him with the youth’s education, and he had only
been trained in the Lowlands, and was not at all what a Highland boy of
his years would be, said the doctor, but all this depreciation only made
Rob Roy the keener to be friendly; and at last when every other excuse
had failed, the doctor shook his head and confessed that the child was
too delicate and would not live through a Highland winter. So, full of
compassion one for another the cousins parted, their roads ran far
apart; Rob Roy came to his end claymore in hand listening to the dirge
‘Cha till mi tuillidh’ (we return no more), while for the doctor there
was a career of steady success and a peaceful ending in the sweet house
in the middle of the herb garden.
Rob Roy had said he would come back and fetch the child when he was
older and stronger, but likely enough when the cousins met again the
chieftain could not advise any man to become his follower. Once again we
see them, Rob Roy walking arm in arm with his kinsman the Professor of
Medicine, down the Castle Street in Aberdeen, when suddenly the drums
beat to arms, and the soldiers begin to issue from the barracks. ‘If
these lads are turning out, it is time for me to look after my safety,’
said Rob Roy, as he slowly shook hands, and turning down one of the
neighbouring closes was seen no more. After telling this story, Sir
Walter Scott added: ‘The first of these anecdotes which brings the
highest pitch of civilization so closely in contact with the half savage
state of society, I have heard told by the late distinguished Dr Gregory
(James Gregory, Professor of Practice of Physic in Edinburgh), and the
members of his family have had the kindness to collate the story with
recollections and family documents, and furnish the authentic
particulars. The second rests on the recollection of an old man, who was
present when Rob Roy took French leave of his literary cousin on hearing
the drums beat, and communicated the circumstance to Mr Alexander
Forbes, a connection of Dr Gregory by marriage.’
There is also a gossiping paragraph about this Dr Gregorie, or rather
about his house, in Orem’s description of Old Aberdeen, written after he
was made Mediciner in King’s College, a post to which he was appointed
in 1725.
‘Dr Gregorie hath repaired his lodging belonging to the college anno
1727; and hath built to it a toofall, for giving it a better entry to
the rooms than it had formerly, in which toofall he hath a little room
for a study, and a little room below it beside the staircase. He hath
also repaired the garden dyke and hath begun to enclose his glebe, a
part wherof he hath enclosed with a stone dyke, and planted it within
the aforsaid year, and hath enclosed the rest of his forsaid glebe this
year 1728.’
The scene rises before us of the physician taking his interested friend,
the town clerk, over his house and grounds. It sounds most attractive,
both the front-hall and the study, and certainly the visitor appreciated
everything when he took the trouble to write it down in his book.
Gregorie also improved the salmon-fishing in the Don by building a stone
rampart across the river which was called ‘Gregorie’s Dyke’ and can
still be seen from the Bridge of Don. In return for this, ‘a half-net’s
fishing’ was granted to him and his heirs for ever, and this has now
devolved upon a descendant of Dr James Gregorie.
When Gregorie was made mediciner he was no longer young, but there was
little in his new position to call for energy; for, although the
University of King’s College of Aberdeen, had been the first to
institute a Chair of Medicine, the teaching of the subject was somewhat
fitful. His predecessor Professor Urquhart had given some ‘Publick
Lessons’ on this subject, but no where is it mentioned that either Dr
James Gregorie or his son followed his example. Their work consisted
chiefly in deciding which candidates were to be granted the M.D. degree,
and in taking a share in the university life. The mediciner was not a
regent and was thus saved the continuous worry and supervision which
fell to the lot of most of the professors.
As for the giving of degrees it was almost entirely a personal affair,
and a doctor of medicine did not by any means need to know much of his
subject. If he were desirable and willing to pay the fees, the mediciner
had the right to grant him a diploma; in some cases even the fee was
dispensed with. For example, there is the following entry in the Records
of the University and King’s College.
* * * * *
‘8th September, 1701.
‘Mr George Cheyne allowed to be graduat doctor in medicine _gratis_,
because he’s not onely our owne country-man, and at present not rich,
but is recommended by the ablest and most learned physitians in
Edinburgh as one of the best mathematicians in Europe; and for his skill
in medicine he hath given a sufficient indication of that by his learned
tractat de Febribus, which hath made him famous abroad as well as at
home; and he being just now goeing to England upon invitation of some of
the members of the Royal Society.’
* * * * *
The affairs of King’s College left much to be desired at this time. As
early as 1709, there had been friction between the professors and
students, the latter of whom described their professors as ‘the useless,
needless, headless, defective, elective Masters of the K. Colledge of
Abd,’ and matters did not improve much in the intervening years; for,
when Professor James Gregorie’s son was mediciner, things had come to
such a pass that the university had to make special and almost pathetic
efforts to secure students.
* * * * *
‘23rd October, 1738.
‘It being represented to the university, that the want of an
accomplished gentlewoman for teaching white and coloured seam, was an
occasion of several gentlemen’s sons being kept from this college, their
parents inclining to send them, where they might have suitable education
for their daughters also; and that one Mrs Cuthbert, now residing in
this town, had given sufficient proof of her capacity and diligence ...
the university judged it reasonable ... to advance her twelve pounds
Scots, out of the revenue belonging to the college for the ensuing
year.’ After this mention, Mrs Cuthbert passes quite out of the
University Records, so we do not know whether the housewifely efforts of
the authorities of the university were successful.
James Gregorie as mediciner received a salary of 180 pounds Scots, 26
bolls bear, 18 bolls meal; and on his resigning his chair on the 20th
December 1732, his son James was _eo die_ appointed to fill the vacancy,
to receive in his turn this munificent salary, and to live in the
fascinating manse.
Dr Gregorie married first, Catherine, second daughter of Sir John Forbes
of Monymusk, but she died young; his second wife was a daughter of
Principal Chalmers (one of the family who founded the _Aberdeen
Journal_), and we can imagine a little joint influence on the part of
the Dean of Faculty and the Principal of King’s College bringing about
this desired election, for we never hear that the third Professor James
ever did anything to make his name live. It was to be left to his
stepbrother to carry on the tradition of the family, but John Gregorie
was only a child when his father died.
Dr James Gregorie, the mediciner, died in January 1733.
In many ways he was among the least distinguished of his family. He
stands there in a misty crowd of the educational magnates of a very far
past time, surrounded by the canonist, the civilist and other obsolete
dignitaries, and all he leaves is an impression of content and of
diplomatic gifts, which show themselves whenever he rises out of
obscurity. This diplomacy, which when it is used in domestic affairs is
called by the Scotch ‘canniness,’ was passed on in the family along with
the gout which came from the Chalmerses, and the combination was
curious. Later on James Gregorie, the cousin of Rob Roy, was recognised
as the founder of the Aberdeen School of Medicine.
His son, Professor James Gregorie, was professor from 1732 to 1755. He
was delicate and irritable, and his friends had a standing joke whenever
he was cross, which probably palled upon him after a certain time. ‘Ah,’
they would say, ‘this comes of not being educated by Rob Roy.’ They, at
least, thought this extremely witty.
Dr Gregorie married Helen Burnet, who was a connection of his own, one
of the Burnets of Elrick. They had no children. He died on the 18th of
November 1755.