2.5.2.2 SELECTION OF COMMISSIONERS
The general meeting that "elected" commissioners was the established annual
meeting of fellows at which college officers were selected. The proportion
who came was high. Fellows increased from 47 in 1800 to just under 100 in
1828
(
Abel-Smith, B.
1964 p.2;
IC 1828). 31 attended the
meeting "Comitus
Majorbibus Ordinaris" on 1.10.1827
(Royal College of Physicians
Annals).
The minutes of the meetings follow a regular pattern from year to year:
The
Treasurer read a statement of accounts (including the madhouse account),
the outgoing President then withdrew with the Elects to elect the next
year's President, who was declared to the meeting on their return.
He
proposed four fellows to the meeting to be censors (examiners of
candidates) for the year, they were balloted for and, being elected, took
an oath and gave their faith to the college.
A Treasurer and a Registrar
(usually the outgoing officers) were then proposed and balloted for,
the
college elected the "Commissioners for licensing Madhouses during the
ensuing year",
the President proposed four fellows to be curators of the
museum (they were not balloted for) and finally
he appointed four fellows
to give the year's lectures
From the form of the minutes one suspects that all appointments were a pre-
determined formality.
This is consistent with my analysis of the
commissioners for madhouses "elected"
(Royal College of Physicians
Annals), from which it
emerged that a system was developed of selection by rotation. My analysis
of this system is set out in
2.6.1. Table
2, supported by the tables for
officers and
for all individual
commissioners.
The system was not
fully developed until
1797.
From
1774 to 1777
only two of the initial five
commissioners were replaced each year and nearly all commissioners were
fellows of several years standing, including Royal College of Physicians
officers and ex-officers. In the
first four years only Robert
Thomlinson had been FRCP for less than ten years. From 1775 the President
was almost invariably a commissioner unless debarred by the
three year rule.
In
1778
four completely new commissioners were appointed with
the President. Two (George Baker and Richard Tyson) had been
fellows for 21 and 17 years respectively, but the other two (Isaac
Schomberg and Henry Reynolds) only for seven and four years each.
Thereafter one, two or three commissioners each year were normally quite
recent fellows (Junior Commissioners) and in the 1780s and 1790s ex-Junior
commissioners began to be appointed for another year of office (Senior
commissioners).
From
1783
the juniors were clearly selected in the sequence
of their admission to fellowship
By
1797
the selection of commissioners was so systematic as to be quite simply
tabulated. Each year the President (except in the fourth year),
two senior commissioners and two junior commissioners were appointed. The
next year, both seniors were replaced, but the juniors served a second year
before being replaced by more recent fellows. Some years later, the ex-
juniors would serve as seniors for a year.. and so on.
The concept of an "election" does not seem appropriate in these
circumstances. Fellows served pre-determined turns. There would have been
no rival candidates and so no discussion of dispute about who should serve.
Presumably the system itself was discussed and determined at some
meeting/s. I did not come across any relevant minute, but, as I did not
know the system, I was not looking for one.
Most fellows active in Royal College of Physicians affairs performed the
role of commissioner at some time and so it did not confer on them a
knowledge that set them apart as experts:
At the general meeting on
30.9.1824, seventeen fellows were present apart from the five appointed
commissioners. Of these, nine had already served (five as seniors, four
only as juniors). The remaining eight had all become fellows after that
year's juniors.
On 1.10.1827 twenty six were present who were not appointed
commissioners. At least two were ineligible as they had an incompatible
professional interest (*) and eleven had not been fellows long enough to
serve. Of the remaining thirteen, eleven had previously served (seven as
seniors, four only as juniors).
In the 1820s a new FRCP had to wait about
ten years before his turn as a junior commissioner, but this was because
the admission of new fellows had, for many years, exceeded the one new
junior commissionership available. (In the 1780s new fellows served as
juniors in the year of their fellowship or soon after). In earlier years,
therefore, the proportion of active fellows with experience as
commissioners would have been far greater.
(*) Edward Thomas Monro (born about 1790, died 1856) and Sir George Leman
Tuthill (born 1772, died 1835)) who were joint physicians to Bethlem from
July 1816
(Hunter and
MacAlpine pp 633 + 758). Monro was also the proprietor of
Brooke House,
Clapton
(
Parry-Jones, W.L. 1972
1972 p.18).
(See
Prohibition of
Interest)