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(Quarter Mile Section - K 14) |
BRIEF HISTORY DURING THE SNOW ERA (1813-58)
When he first came to London in October 1836 to continue his formal medical education, John Snow lived at 11 Bateman's Buildings, a narrow, nondescript alleyway near Soho Square which sits on the former site of Monmouth House, demolished in 1773. Snow remained there until 1838 when he started his medical practice. The dwelling where Snow resided was a plain front building, three stories high above a cellar basement and two windows wide. His living experience was described by Stephanie Snow:
Snow's lodgings were situated less than a quarter of a mile away from the Hunterian Medical School and just over a mile away from Westminster Hospital. For most of his student days, he lived at 11 Bateman's Buildings, Soho Square, in lodgings with a fellow medical student at the Hunterian School, Joshua Parsons. Parsons wrote that they had met in the dissecting room:
it happened that we usually overstayed our fellows, and often worked far on into the evening. The acquaintance thus grew into intimacy, which ended by our lodging and reading together. We were constant companions from that time till I left town in October 1837.
Reading formed a major part of a student's life and had to be fitted into the beginning and the end of the day, as the remainder was taken up by lectures and dissection. There is no doubt that the life of a medical student was rigorous and potentially isolating.
- Stephanie Snow, 2000
After completing a year at the Hunterian School of Medicine, Snow enrolled in October 1837 in the Westminster Hospital for surgical and medical practice. Thereafter, Snow took the Royal College of Surgeons examination in May 1838 and passed without problem. In September 1838 he moved from his dingy quarters on Bateman's Buildings to a rented house at 54 Frith Street, less than a quarter mile away in Soho.
Bateman's Buildings is not shown in Reynold's 1859 map, but is located in cell K14 just below "Q" in SQU for Soho Square between Frith Street and Greek Street. The street outline for Bateman's Buildings is seen in the 1846 map and more clearly in the 1862 map. Finally, a detailed view of the building location is presented in the 1870 and 1869-74 maps.
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(Quarter Mile Section - K 14) |
Sources:
Ellis RH. The Case Books of Dr. John Snow, Medical History, Suppl. 14, 1994
Snow S. J Medical Biography 8, 71-77, 2000.
Sheppard FHW (ed).Survey of London, Vol. 33, 1966.
Weinreb B, Hibbert C (eds). The London Encyclopaedia, 1993.
Site in Crutchley's London Map of 1846
Click here to see more details 13 years earlier
