years, during which some of his later works were produced. He married at Blackburn, on 28 Feb. 1738, Mary, widow of Hugh Baldwin, and among his children were William Hunter, fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford, and minister of St. Paul's, Liverpool, and Thomas Hunter, who succeeded him as vicar of Weaverham. Both published sermons.
Hunter wrote:
- 'A Letter to the Hon. Colonel John —— in Flanders, on the subject of Religion,' 1744, 8vo.
- 'A Letter to a Priest of the Church of Rome on the subject of Image Worship,' 8vo.
- 'Observations on Tacitus,' 1752, 8vo.
- 'An Impartial Account of Earthquakes,' Liverpool, 1756, 8vo.
- 'A Sketch of the Philosophical Character of Lord Bolingbroke,' 1770, 8vo second edition, 1776. For this work he received the degree of M.A. by diploma from the university of Oxford. Bishop Warburton's opinion of it was not very favourable (Letters to Hurd, cciv.)
- 'Moral Discourses on Providence and other Important Subjects,' 1774, 2 vols. 8vo; second edition, 1776.
- 'Reflections, Critical and Moral, on the Letters of the late Earl of Chesterfield,' 1776, 8vo.
[Fishwick's Hist. of Garstang (Cheth. Soc.), ii. 193; Earwaker's Local Gleanings, vols. i. ii. Abram's Hist. of Blackburn, 1877, pp.339, 347, 478; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Ormerod's Cheshire, orig. edit. ii. 58.]
HUNTER, WILLIAM (1718–1783), anatomist, seventh of ten children of John and Agnes Hunter, and elder brother of John Hunter (1728–1793) [q. v.], was born at Long Calderwood, East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, on 23 May 1718. At the age of fourteen he was sent to Glasgow University, where he remained five years. He was intended by his father for the Scottish church, but becoming averse to subscribing the articles, he took the advice of William Cullen (1710-1790) [q.v.], then practising at Hamilton, and decided to enter the medical profession. He was Cullen's resident pupil from 1737 to 1740, and a partnership with Cullen was to have followed his return from study in Edinburgh and London. He afterwards referred to Cullen as 'a man to whom I owe most, and love most of all men in the world.' After spending the winter of 1740-1 at Edinburgh under Monro primus and other professors, he went to London in the summer of 1741. Dr. James Douglas (1675-1742) [q.v.], who was looking out for a suitable dissector to aid him in his projected work on the bones, engaged Hunter for this purpose, and to superintend his son's education. Douglas also assisted Hunter to enter as a pupil at St. George's Hospital under James Wilkie, surgeon, and to obtain instruction from Dr. Frank Nicholls (1699-1778) [q.v.], teacher of anatomy, and from Dr. Desaguliers in experimental philosophy. The death of Douglas in 1742 did not interrupt Hunter's residence with the family, and in 1743 he communicated his first paper to the Royal Society 'On the Structure and Diseases of Articulating Cartilages ' (Phil. Trans. vol. xlii.) In the winter of 1746 he succeeded Samuel Sharpe [q. v.] as lecturer on the operations of surgery to a society of navy surgeons in their room in Covent Garden, and by their invitation extended his plan to include anatomy. His generosity to needy friends, however, left him without means to advertise his second year's course. He afterwards learnt to practise great economy. On 6 Aug. 1747 he was admitted a member of the Surgeons' Corporation. In the spring of 1748 he accompanied his pupil James Douglas through Holland to Paris, visiting Albinus at Leyden, and being much impressed with his admirable injections, which he afterwards emulated. In September his younger brother, John Hunter, arrived in London, learnt to dissect under him, and next year superintended his practical class. This connection lasted till 1759, during which period William Hunter's lectures gained fame for their eloquence and fulness, and for the abundance of practical illustration supplied. His success in obstetric practice led him to abandon surgery. In 1748 he was elected surgeon-accoucheur to the Middlesex, and in to the British Lying-in Hospital. On 24 Oct. 1750 he obtained the degree of M.D. from Glasgow University, and about this time he left Mrs. Douglas's family and settled as a physician in Jermyn Street. In the summer of 1751 he revisited Long Calderwood, which had become his property on the death of his elder brother, James. His mother died on 3 Nov. of the same year. On 30 Sept. 1756 he was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London, and soon afterwards was elected a member of the Society of Physicians, the parent of the Medical Society. He now applied to be disfranchised by the Surgeons' Corporation, but in 1758 he paid the surgeons a fine of 20l. for having joined the College of Physicians without their previous consent (Craft of Surgery, p. 284). Hunter had now become the leading obstetrician, and was consulted in 1762 by Queen Charlotte, to whom he was appointed physician extraordinary in 1764. To relieve him in his lectures he had engaged William Hewson (1739-1774) [q.v.] to assist him, and later Hewson became his partner. They separated in 1770, when W. C. Cruikshank [q. v.] succeeded him. In 1767 Hunter was elected a fellow of the Royal
