Cast of Characters #1 - Dr John Alderson

Ever wondered who the statue in front of the Hull Royal Infirmary represents? Over fifteen thousand people attended the funeral of Dr John Alderson in September 1829 at St Marys Lowgate; testimony to his contribution to Hull.

Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk he studied medicine in Edinburgh. Marrying Sarah Scott of Beverley, he moved to Hull in 1787; eleven children followed, only five survived. They lived on Saville Street and then, Charlotte Street near Hull College today. Three of his sons – Christopher, Ralph and James (later Sir James) – became doctors, and one, John, became a solicitor.

Alderson built a large medical practice in the town and was elected physician to the Hull General Infirmary, which opened in 1782 and moved to Prospect Street, opposite the Central Library today, in 1784. Alderson was honorary physician there for 40 years giving his services for free. In 1814 he founded the Sculcoates Refuge for the Insane and was made a freeman of the city in 1813.

He was president of the Hull Subscription Library in 1801 and of the Literary and Philosophical Society in 1822. He founded the Hull Mechanics' Institute in 1825 and was keen to press commercial interests. He founded the Hull School of Medicine in Kingston Square which opened two years after Alderson died. This completed what would now be called a Healthcare Quarter with the Infirmary on Prospect Street, Albion Street full of medical practitioners and, Kingston Square with the Medical School. His son James gave the inaugural lecture.

Alderson’s published work is significant. An Essay on the Nature and Origin of the Contagion of Fever (1788) anticipated the rapid urbanisation and Public Health crises to come that: “crowded cities breathe their own destruction”. He was interested in orthography and soils; he even published a work to prove the existence of Ghosts which explored their supposed appearance in a world of hallucinations and illusions experienced by the sick: “explaining by natural causes what has hitherto been considered supernatural”.