294 HILLS : E. G. VARENNE, OF KELVEDON, BOTANIST.
Ezekiel Varenne, a physician and surgeon, held the post of
Resident Medical Officer.3 Varenne's widow informs me that,
at a very early age, young Varenne lost both his parents and
that he was brought up by an uncle, Sir — Hooper, a noted
physician of that day.4 In these circumstances, it fell out
naturally that the young man, in his turn, took to the same
profession. After studying in London, probably whilst an
assistant to his foster-parent, he became (says Prof. Boulger)
a licentiate of the. Society of Apothecaries in 1832 and took
his diploma as "Regimental Surgeon" (a qualification then
commonly granted) on 15 May 1833, thus becoming a member
of the College of Surgeons (not then "Royal") at the age of
twenty-two, the earliest age at which the College was accus-
tomes to grant diplomas.5 About this time (says Prof. Boulger),
he became surgeon to the Cholera Board of Health at Nottingham.
How long he held this post I know not. but possibly till he went
to Kelvedon. Prof. Boulger believes this was "about 1847,"
but it was, I fancy,' considerably (perhaps ten years) earlier.
At all events, he was in practice there by 1848, for his name
appears as a surgeon there in a Directory of that year.6
However this may have been, Varenne, on settling at Kel-
vedon, became the professional rival (so I am told) to a doctor
already established there, who had given a good round sum for
his practice and had then taken to drink. As a natural result, the
doctor in question soon found that the Kelvedon people had
no use for him ; so he departed, selling the practice to his rival
for a sum very much smaller than that he had given for it. Thus,
at an early age, Varenne found himself the leading medical
practitioner in Kelvedon, and there he remained until his death,
some forty or fifty years later. He has left his mark upon the
place ; and to this day he is well remembered by all the older
inhabitants, who tell anecdotes relating to him and his
personal characteristics.
Kelvedon was, at this time, a small sleepy Essex town of
some fourteen hundred inhabitants. The surrounding district
3 He had been granted his diploma by the old "Company of Surgeons on 21 June-
1798.
4 I can learn nothing of any such person. Probably the man referred to is Dr. Robert
Hooper (1773-1835), an eminent physician and voluminous medical-writer. He had been,
apothecary to the Marylebone Infirmary in his younger days (see Munk's Coll. of Physicians,
iii., pp. 193-194).
5 For this information, I am indebted to the courtesy of the Secretary of the Royal College
of Surgeons.
6 White's Gaz. and Direct., of Essex, p. 175 (1848).