English scientist, researcher, physician and polymath. He is sometimes considered to be “the last person to know everything"”: that is, he was familiar with virtually all the contemporary Western academic knowledge at that point in history. ALS, one page, 4.5 x 7.25, no date. Letter written to writer and politician John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), to which he sends a draft for the mechanism of inspections of the observatory in Greenwich. Letter, headed as “Private,” reads, in part, “My idea of the kind of meeting is in great measure copied from the visitations of Madhouses by the commissions of the College…the business is admirably done, with the help of a dinner; and the attendance is always punctual.” Also included is a three page handwritten manuscript on the same size sheets, labeled at the top, “Project.” Manuscript reads, in part, “The business of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich having of late been greatly extended, so as apparently to require a more frequent Inspection on the part of the Visitors than it has hitherto been practicable for them to perform; and on the other hand the newly established observatory at the Cape of Good Hope requiring more immediate attention than can conveniently be paid to it by the Board of Longitude alone, it is apprehended that both these difficulties may be obviated … by a combination of the science and judgment of the Council of the Royal Society with the powers that are possessed be the Board of Admiralty.” In fine condition, with some scattered light soiling. COA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
