This post under construction
I first posted on the bust of Lee July 2017.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2018/07/bust-of-dr-matthew-lee-by-roubiliac.html
This is the first published essay on the subject of this
bust - peculiarly it is not recorded in the Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain
.. Roscoe et al, pub Yale 2009.
Placed in the building in 1758 (info from A Christchurch
Miscellany, Hiscock, 1946).
see page 317, Catalogue of Portraits Oxford... Vol III, Mrs
Reginald Lane Poole 1925.
Noted in the lecture room in 1925, now in the hallway on the
ground floor.
Matthew Lee born in Northamptonshire matriculated in 1713
and studied medicine, graduating BA (1717), MA (1720), BM (1722) and DM (1726).
He showed marked affection for the House, and the Chapter leased to him the
lucrative tithes of the Rectory of Chippenham, which no doubt secured his material comfort, since
the tithes were additional to the income from his rewarding and extensive
medical practices.
Candidate for the Royal College of Physicians on 12 April
1731, became a Fellow on 3 April 1732
Having married a young lady from London in 1730, he moved to
the capital, where he practised even more successfully. Lee does not at this
stage appear to have had great interest in the scientific aspects of the
profession; his contribution was to come later, in his will.
Matthew Lee was a Westminster School and Christ Church
physician, who graduated MB in 1722, delivered the Bodleian oration in 1723,
and received his DM in 1726.
He lived in part of Frewin's house in New Inn Hall Street,
so probably gained his clinical practice with him. However, when James Keill
died in 1719, he left Lee his microscope and all his medical books, and as Lee
was a Northampton man, he may have studied with Keill as well.
Dr Lee moved to London in 1730, became a fellow of the
College of Physicians and Harveian orator, and succeeded Noel Broxholme as
physician to Frederick Prince of Wales, but neither he nor Sir Edward Wilmot
recognised the gravity of the Prince's fatal illness. Prince Frederick died in
1751 from an infected cyst possibly initiated two years previously by a blow
from a cricket ball.
It is thought that the creation of the Anatomy Laboratory
had originally been suggested by John Freind, physician to Queen Caroline, who
gave a course in Chemistry in 1704. His
will directed that, if his son should die without children, £1000 would be
given for the building of an Anatomy School at Christ Church and for the salary
of a Reader in the subject. It is not clear what happened to this benefaction
but the son died unmarried in 1750 and it is probable that the bequest was
indeed made to Christ Church, since 1750 is the commonly quoted date of the
foundation of the Matthew Lee Readership (the Freind bequest would in any case
have been inadequate for the purpose intended).
This bequest was later augmented by some £10,000 by Matthew
Lee.
Matthew Lee died in 1755 and left the bulk of his estate
(over £20,000) to Christ Church for the advancement of Westminster students and
for the endowment of a Readership in Anatomy.
Nevertheless, there
were strict conditions: the holder of the post was to have been educated at
Westminster, to hold the degree of MA having studied physick, to be a layman,
to reside in Oxford for at least six months annually, to instruct only in
Anatomy, Physick and Botany, and to dissect two bodies each year (for which the
Trust provided an additional £40 per annum as running costs). The dissections
were public spectacles: the Dean could nominate four Students and two Commoners
to attend without charge, all others being required to pay a fee.
https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2018/07/bust-of-dr-matthew-lee-by-roubiliac.html
The Monument to Mrs Deborah Gibbons (nee Favell) d . 1711.
Mother of Elizabeth Lawes later Home, Countess of Home (née Gibbons; 1703/04 – 15 January 1784).
The monument is inscribed by John Cheere and was ordered by Elizabeth Lawes perhaps at the same time as that of her husband in 1737.
see my previous post - https://bathartandarchitecture.blogspot.com/2025/04/a-monument-inscribed-by-john-cheere-in.html
For Monuments in the West Indies see -
https://ia601306.us.archive.org/20/items/monumentalinscri00lawrrich/monumentalinscri00lawrrich.pdf
There is another version of this bust at Blair Castle described as
