Bryan and William Higgins

Abstract

Bryan Higgins (Collooney, Co. Sligo, 1737 or 1741–Walford, Staffs., 1818) took the external M.D. of Leyden and practised as a physician in London, where he opened a School of Practical Chemistry on 5 July 1774 in Greek Street, Soho, giving a course of lectures and demonstrations.¹ He was assisted for a time by his nephew William Higgins, who calls him ‘a phlogistian’.² The syllabus of the lectures was issued first in 1775 (I), then reprinted with many slight changes of wording and omissions in 1776 (II). In I Higgins says many subscribers had asked for a previous course of practical chemistry in which a didactic order would be preserved, and a syllabus of this was published as III:

• I. A Syllabus of the Discourses and Experiments, With which the Meetings of the Subscribers are to be opened, after the Course of Chemistry is concluded; undated. On p. 2: Advertisement. The following Proposals, altho’ formerly published, are inserted with a view to express the purposes for which the approaching meetings are to be held.

• II. A Syllabus of Chemical and Philosophical Enquiries, composed for the Use of the Noblemen and Gentlemen who have subscribed to the Proposals made for the Advancement of Natural Knowledge; in IV, pp. xix–liii, and separately (same title): London, printed for J. Robson and Co., New Bond Street, and B. Law, Ave Maria Lane, 1776.