Thomas Hutchins FRSE (1742? – 7 July 1790) was a British physician and naturalist.

Life

Hutchins was employed as

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...

surgeon at

York Factory York Factory was a settlement and Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) factory (trading post) located on the southwestern shore of Hudson Bay in northeastern Manitoba, Canada, at the mouth of the Hayes River, approximately south-southeast of Churchill. ...

(

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

) 1766–1773 then Governor of Albany fort (

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

) 1774–1782. By all accounts, he was a conscientious and hard-working physician but found time for research including a study of local edible plants useful for prevention of

scurvy Scurvy is a disease resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, feeling tired and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, decreased red blood cells, gum disease, changes to hair, and bleeding ...

. He was visited 1768–1769 by astronomer William Wales, who had been sent by the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

to observe the 1769

transit of Venus frameless, upright=0.5 A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet, becoming visible against (and hence obscuring a small portion of) the solar disk. During a tr ...

, and was left equipment and instructions for recording meteorological data. Encouraged by his acting chief Andrew Graham 1771–1772, he kept notes on wildlife, including descriptions of species not previously recorded. At the behest of the

, he made useful observations on

magnetic declination Magnetic declination, or magnetic variation, is the angle on the horizontal plane between magnetic north (the direction the north end of a magnetized compass needle points, corresponding to the direction of the Earth's magnetic field lines) an ...

at Albany 1775–1776. He performed preliminary experiments on the congelation (

freezing point The melting point (or, rarely, liquefaction point) of a substance is the temperature at which it changes state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase exist in equilibrium. The melting point of a substance depend ...

) of mercury in 1775, identifying the problem with previous attempts as being due to the abrupt change of volume of the mercury in the thermometer as it changed state. Apparatus for an improved method was devised and after a series of careful experiments 1779–1782, its freezing point was determined at −39 °F. For this work, highly praised by

Cavendish Cavendish may refer to: People * The House of Cavendish, a British aristocratic family * Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673), British poet, philosopher, and scientist * Cavendish (author) (1831–1899), pen name of Henry Jones, English au ...

, he was awarded the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 1783, jointly with

John Goodricke John Goodricke FRS (17 September 1764 – 20 April 1786) was an English amateur astronomer. He is best known for his observations of the variable star Algol (Beta Persei) in 1782. Life and work John Goodricke, named after his great-grandfath ...

(for unrelated work). He served the Hudson's Bay Company for the rest of his life in London as corresponding secretary. It is probable that much of the nature notes for which he was also highly praised was actually the work of Andrew Graham, either generously given or plagiarised, an action not considered so reprehensible in those days. In 1784 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were John McGowan, John Robison and Very Rev John Walker. He died on 7 July 1790. Hutchins' goose (Branta hutchinsii) was named for him

References

*''Eighteenth Century Naturalists of Hudson Bay'' by Stuart Houston, Tim Ball, Mary Houston (McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal, Canada) *''Cavendish'' by

Christa Jungnickel Christa Jungnickel (11 April 1935 – 12 August 1990) was a German-American historian of science. Life Jungnickel was originally from Germany, one of three daughters of a German soldier who was lost in Russia during World War II. As a teenager, ...

, Russell McCormmach (The American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1996)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hutchins, Thomas 1742 births 1790 deaths 18th-century English medical doctors British naturalists Recipients of the Copley Medal 18th-century British scientists Hudson's Bay Company people