THE ESSEX NATURALIST. 
64 
built its first Chapel. This was known as the “ Braintree 
Meeting House ” and its Ministers as “ the Dissenting Ministers 
of Braintree.” For years (perhaps until his death), Dale held 
the office of Deacon. 84 
There is evidence, however, that all Ministers of the Church 
of England in Braintree did not accord to Dale their friendship 
and toleration, as the great Ray had done ; for the Rev. Stephen 
Newcomen, vicar of Braintree, in his letter to the Rev. Philip 
Morant, 85 Writes :—“ You know enough, I presume, of Mr. 
Dale’s character, as not to launch out too largely in his praise.” 
What there Was to lead Newcomen to write so contemptuously 
of Dale’s character, I know not. So far as we know, it was of 
the highest. Perhaps, with advancing age, Dale had become 
somewhat crabbed. His portrait, 86 painted in 1711, when, 
he Was 72 years of age, certainly suggests great determination 
Which perhaps developed later into obstinacy. Probably, 
however, the sneering tone of Newcomen’s reference to Dale 
is due to nothing more than the bias of one Church of England 
clergyman writing to another in reference to a prominent local 
dissenter. 
Dale was never a Fellow of the Royal Society, though he 
was described as such in an incomplete and incorrect obituary 
notice , 87 
It has been remarked already that, late in life, Dale took a 
physician’s degree—that of Licentiate in Medicine (“ M.L.”)— 
in addition to that as an apothecary which he had held for 
very many years. It is not known, however, by what medical 
authority, or when, this Was granted. Newcomen, in his 
letter to Morant, states 88 that “ He prescribed as a physician 
9 or 10 years before his death, which happened the 15th 89 March 
1738-9.” That is to say, he began about 1729. 90 
84 In 1789, an independent church having been established in Braintree, the older chapel 
became known (as it is still) as the Booking Congregational Church. (See Biographical 
Sketches of Successive Pastors of the Congregational Church at Booking, Essex (Braintree, 
8s., 1829 ; reprinted from the Congregational Magazine). In the beginning and middle of the 
Nineteenth Century, it was attended regularly by many of the leading families of the twin- 
towns and neighbourhood. 
85 See ante, p. 58. 
86 Essex Nat., xvii., p. 132 (1913). 
87 Gentl. Mag., ix., p. 327. 
88 See ante, p. 58. 
89 Should be 18th (see post, p. 65). 
90 This accords very well with the fact that, in the will of Dale's second wife, made in March 
1726, he is described as “ apothecary " only ; whilst later he was generally described as “ M.L.," 
as, for instance, on Plate 96 in Michaelis’ Nova Plantarum Genera, published in 1729, and on the 
portrait in the 3rd ed. of Dale’s Pharmacologia, published in 1737, Further, Thomas Wright 
states explicitly (Hist, of Essex, ii., p. 25 : 1832) that, “in 1730, Dale became a Licentiate of the 
Royal College of Physicians in London and a practitioner at Booking, where he died in 1739, 
aged eighty." It is difficult to disbelieve so positive a statement by a reputable writer, even 
when he omits to cite a definite authority ; but the records of the College (which I have been 
kindly allowed to see) contain no record of the fact. 
