LONG CALDERWOOD is the property of William Hunter Baillie, Esq., of London, and is situated in the parish of East Kilbride and county of Lanark.
A large part of this and the adjoining parishes was divided into small estates more than two hundred years ago, and, according to Hamilton, "the lands are mostly feued out to country men." Long-Calderwood was no exception, as the Hunters, to whom it belonged at "the beginning of last century, were a family of small proprietors farming their own lands. The House is a very old one, but still a good farm-house.
Here, on the 23rd of May 1718, was born the well known William Hunter.
William Hunter, M.D., was one of the most celebrated teachers of Anatomy, and writers on that subject, in the last century. He studied in the University of Glasgow from 1731 to 1736, afterwards he went to Edinburgh, and finally to London. There he soon obtained a most extensive practice as a surgeon. In 1764 he was appointed physician to the Queen. He was soon afterwards elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and, on the foundation of the Royal Academy, received from the King the appointment of Professor of Anatomy.
In his house in Great Wind-Mill Street he formed a most valuable museum, library, and collection of anatomical objects, all of which, along with £8,000 for the erection of a building to contain them, he left to the University of Glasgow. He died in 1783; and in 1807 the collection was removed to Glasgow, and now forms the Hunterian Museum. (1)
John Hunter, the younger brother of William, was born at Long-Calderwood in 1728. Like his brother he went to London, and like him, too, attained to extraordinary eminence as a surgeon and operator. In 1767 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; next year he was appointed one of the surgeons of St. George's Hospital, and in 1776 surgeon-extraordinary to the King.
He died in 1793, and his valuable anatomical museum was bought by Government, and placed in the Royal College of Surgeons of London.
After the deaths of these celebrated brothers the property passed to their nephew, Dr. Matthew Baillie.
Matthew Baillie, M.D., was himself a famous anatomist and physician in London, and lecturer at St. George's Hospital after the death of his uncle. He was the son of the Rev. James Baillie, D.D., minister of the parish of Bothwell, and afterwards Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow; by a sister of the brothers Hunter. Dr. Baillie was also the father of Joanna Baillie, who was born in Bothwell Manse in 1762, and afterwards became famous for her dramatic and poetical writings.
On the death of Dr. Matthew Baillie in 1823, the property passed to his son, the present owner.
Long-Calderwood, though a mere "bonnet lairdship," has thus been the cradle of four of the most distinguished scientific and literary characters of the end of the last and beginning of this century. (2)
(1) The fine classical building, long known as the "Hunterian Museum," was sold, along with the venerable University buildings, to the Glasgow Union Railway Company. The collection itself has found a new home in the College at Gilmorehill.
(2) There are two pictures of Dr. William Hunter (one of them a Reynolds) in the Hunterian Museum, where there are also pictures of the Rev. James Baillie D.D., and of his distinguished son, Dr. Matthew Baillie.
Back to Contents