
Thomas Stewart Traill (29 October 1781 – 30 July 1862) was a British
physician
A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...
,
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...
,
meteorologist
A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists ...
,
zoologist
Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...
and scholar of
medical jurisprudence
Medical jurisprudence or legal medicine is the branch of science and medicine involving the study and application of scientific and medical knowledge to legal problems, such as inquests, and in the field of law. As modern medicine is a legal ...
. He was the grandfather of the physicist, meteorologist and geologist
Robert Traill Omond FRSE
Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...
(1858-1914).
Early life
Traill was born at
Kirkwall
Kirkwall (, , or ; ) is the largest town in Orkney, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland. First mentioned in the ''Orkneyinga saga'', it is today the location of the headquarters of the Orkney Islands Council and a transport hub wi ...
in Orkney, the son of the Rev Thomas Traill (died 1782), the minister in Kirkwall, and his wife Lucia. His father died the year after he was born.
He studied medicine at the
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...
under
Dr Alexander Monro, gaining his doctorate (MD) in 1802.
He was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh
The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...
in 1819. His proposers were
Robert Jameson
image:Robert Jameson.jpg, Robert Jameson
Robert Jameson Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS FRSE (11 July 1774 – 19 April 1854) was a Scottish natural history, naturalist and mineralogist.
As Regius Professor of Natural History at the Univers ...
,
John Murray, Lord Murray, and
Thomas Charles Hope. He was Curator of the Society's museum from 1834 to 1856.
He practised medicine for 30 years in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...
, and was a founder of the
Royal Institution of Liverpool, the
Liverpool Mechanics' Institution and the
Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool. He became acquainted with the Arctic explorer
William Scoresby, contributing a list of animals observed in eastern
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...
to Scoresby's ''Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale Fishery'' (1823). Scoresby named
Traill Island in Greenland for him. Mount Traill in
Nigeria
Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...
was named after him by
William Balfour Baikie
William Balfour Baikie (27 August 182512 December 1864) was a Scottish explorer, naturalist and philologist.
Biography
Baikie was born at Kirkwall, Orkney, eldest son of Captain John Baikie, R.N. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, and, on obta ...
.
In 1812 he first suggested creation of a
Royal Society of Liverpool which eventually came to fruition in 1821.
When
John James Audubon
John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin, April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a French-American Autodidacticism, self-trained artist, natural history, naturalist, and ornithology, ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornitho ...
arrived in Liverpool in July 1826 Traill helped him to find a publisher for his ''The Birds of America''. Audubon named the
Traill's flycatcher after him, which at one time referred to a species which included both the
willow flycatcher (''Empidonax traillii'') and the
alder flycatcher (''Empidonax alnorum'').
Always interested in railways, in October 1829 he and his family attended the famous
Rainhill trials and saw first hand Stephenson's "Rocket" win the competition. During this trial he, his wife and two daughters were invited as passengers in a rival engine, the "Novelty" built by
Braithwaite and
Ericsson
(), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...
, one of the runners-up in the trials. This makes them possibly the first passengers on a steam train.
University of Edinburgh and the Encyclopædia Britannica
Traill returned to the University of Edinburgh in 1832 as a professor of medical jurisprudence, and served in this role until death, also serving as President of the
Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh 1852 to 1854.
In 1833 he was elected a member of the
Aesculapian Club. In 1837 Traill was elected a member of the
Harveian Society of Edinburgh and served as president in 1842.
In 1847 he replaced
Macvey Napier as main Editor of the ''
Encyclopædia Britannica
The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...
'' (1852–61) and was creator of its 8th edition: works concluding a year before his death.
He was a keen (but unsuccessful) supporter of women attending the university.
He was President of the
Royal Scottish Society of the Arts
The Royal Scottish Society of Arts is a learned society in Scotland, dedicated to the study of science and technology. It was founded as The Society for the Encouragement of the Useful Arts in Scotland by David Brewster, Sir David Brewster in 18 ...
1843–44.
In 1840 he was living at 10 Albyn Place in Edinburgh's
Moray Estate close to
Charlotte Square.
He died at his final home, 29 Rutland Square in Edinburgh's West End on 30 July 1862, and was interred at
St Cuthbert's cemetery.
The grave contains members of both the Omond family and Traill family and stands against an outer eastern wall of the southern section, under the shadows of
Edinburgh Castle
Edinburgh Castle is a historic castle in Edinburgh, Scotland. It stands on Castle Rock (Edinburgh), Castle Rock, which has been occupied by humans since at least the Iron Age. There has been a royal castle on the rock since the reign of Malcol ...
.
Family
In July 1811 he was married to Christian Robertson (1780-1842), daughter of Rev Harry Robertson of Kiltearn, Ross-shire and the widow of James Watson of Crantit, an Orkney factor for Lord Dundas. She had married James Watson aged 19 and had five children by him by age 28 when he died, the youngest being born after his father's death. She had a further five children with Traill, two sons and three daughters.
Their daughter Mary Eliza Traill married
Robert Omond. Their children included
Robert Traill Omond.
Thomas appears to have been cousin or second cousin to Rev
Robert Traill (and shows a strong family resemblance).
Publications
*''Thermometer and Pyrometer'' (1828)
*''The Medico-Legal Examination of Dead Bodies'' (1839) a standard textbook on postmortems co-written with
Robert Christison and
James Syme.
*''The Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia'' (12th Edition - 1841)
*''Memoir of
William Roscoe
William Roscoe (8 March 175330 June 1831) was an English banker, lawyer, and briefly a Member of Parliament. He is best known as one of England's first abolitionists, and as the author of the poem for children '' The Butterfly's Ball, and th ...
'' (1853)
Artistic recognition
His portrait by
Alexander Mosses is held by the
Scottish National Portrait Gallery in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
but rarely displayed.
See also
*
:Taxa named by Thomas Stewart Traill
References
Sources
*''Audubon to Xánthus'', Barbara and Richard Mearns
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Traill, Thomas Stewart
1781 births
1862 deaths
Academics of the University of Edinburgh
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Encyclopædia Britannica
Founders of English schools and colleges
Medical jurisprudence
People from Kirkwall
Scottish book editors
19th-century Scottish chemists
Scottish encyclopedists
19th-century Scottish medical doctors
Scottish meteorologists
Scottish zoologists
19th-century Scottish philanthropists
Office bearers of the Harveian Society of Edinburgh
Members of the Harveian Society of Edinburgh
Scottish taxonomists