SOME ESSEX DOCTORS.
87
on the fact that he acquired an estate in the County where he
laid out and planted a very wonderful garden.
John Fothergill was a Yorkshireman, born at Carr End
on the banks of the little lake of Semerwater in Wensleydale,
the second son of John Fothergill and Margaret Hough his wife,
on 8 March, 1712. His grandparents came under the influence
of George Fox as "he passed up the Dales Warning people to
"fear God and preaching the everlasting Gospel to them." His
father for about fourteen years before his marriage had devoted
himself entirely to journeying about the country preaching the
faith of the Society of Friends. Three times he visited the
American colonies, spending several years in long and arduous
journeys through the sparsely settled regions. After his marriage
he appears to have settled down for a time but never entirely
abandoned his preaching wanderings. Perhaps because of the
necessarily unsettled home life John Fothergill very early in life
Was consigned to the care of his mother's family, the Houghs
of Cheshire, also zealous Friends. While with them he attended
the elementary day school at Frodsham, but at the early age of
twelve years he was sent to the Grammar School of Sedbergh,
where he remained for four years. At the age of 16, in 1728,
he left Sedbergh and was apprenticed for seven years to Benjamin
Bartlett, an eminent apothecary of Bradford. Bartlett was
also a minister of the Society of Friends and travelled extensively
with Fothergill's father. In a memoir of Fothergill's life drawn
up by desire of the Medical Society of London by Dr. G. Thomp-
son, Bartlett's house in Bradford is referred to as:—
"The seminary of Ingenious Physicians., How happy to
"obtain such a master, when to imitate him was to be the
"gentleman in sentiment and manner, to be generous, good
"and virtuous. He had here the completest opportunity of
"knowing drugs and preparations in their best and genuine
"state, of compounding them with neatness, visiting patients
"and of laying the best foundation in an art to which his mind
"had an early and strong impulse. He gave many flattering
"expectations under the precepts of his worthy master, and
"his sensible conduct and behaviour attracted the notice,
"and even admiration, of some considerable persons in the
"neighbourhood."
He stayed with Bartlett, however, only about six years,