CHAPTER II 



DR. JOHN FOTHERGILL BIRTH AND TRAINING 



I know my ancestors are bound up in me. We shame them if we 

 fail in courage and honour. Is it not so ? Why, that makes us what 

 we are ; we dare not be weak if we would. GEORGE MEREDITH. 



No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him. 

 LOWELL. 



His boyhood had been passed in the atmosphere of the Society of 

 Friends that intangible but pervading spirit, which instils rather 

 than teaches the doctrine of the equality and brotherhood of men and 

 women, of rich and poor ; the nothingness of worldly distinctions ; 

 and the supreme duty of humane conduct. G. M. TREVELYAN on John 

 Bright. 



JOHN FOTHERGILL was born in Wensleydale, Yorkshire, 

 on the 8th of March 1712. Like William and John Hunter, 

 he came from the class of small yeomen, once common 

 in Britain, and which has furnished in the course of her 

 history so many men of independent thought and action 

 to take part in the national life. To find Fothergill's 

 birthplace we must pass up Wensleydale, where broad 

 grassy slopes on either hand lead to moorland heights 

 beyond, and near Bainbridge we must turn into a side 

 valley, to the little lake of Semerwater, fed by a stream 

 flowing from the hills above. Here, separated from the 

 lake by low meadows, stands the plain stone farmhouse 

 of Carr End, half hidden by trees, with its back set 

 against a rocky scar. On a slab over the garden gateway, 

 and upon a small stone trough, are stijl to be seen the 

 marks of the builder of the house : " J. F., 1667." 1 



1 Carr End was the property of the Fothergill family for about two hundred 

 years until it was sold in 1841 : it now belongs to F. H. Jackson of 

 Middlesborough, and is occupied by J. Outhwaite. The house is in good 

 preservation. There is a stone party-wall more than 4 feet in thickness, 

 which contains in its substance, besides fireplaces, many ingeniously devised 



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