Volunteers' Week 2024
This Volunteers' Week we celebrate the amazing contributions volunteers make to the RCP Museum, Heritage Library and Archives.
Mary Black and her portrait of Dr Messenger Monsey
The RCP is delighted to announce a loan of a painting of physician Dr Messenger Monsey by Mary Black to Tate Britain’s exhibition Now you see us: Women artists in Britain 1520–1920.
Elizabeth Douglas
Volunteering at the RCP
Archives and Records Management student, Ana Brown explores the archives of Frederick Parkes Weber.
Max Leonard Rosenheim: a life in five documents
Archives volunteer, Mathilda Wood describes the life of physician Max Leonard Rosenheim, through five archival documents.
Physicians at the Palace
The RCP is thrilled to announce that a loan of objects related to notable 17th and 18th century royal physicians are now on display at Kensington Palace as part of their exhibition, Untold Lives: A Palace at Work. The loan is an exciting opportunity to share RCP collections and the history of physicians with a new and broad audience.
Elizabeth Douglas
‘The best description of the Oran Ooutan’: Daniel Beeckman’s Voyage to Borneo
Daniel Beeckman’s A voyage to and from the island of Borneo in the East-Indies (1718) reveals how natural history, British colonialism and medical institutions were intertwined in the 18th century, as well as having a direct connection to George Edwards, an important figure in RCP history and the earliest European depiction of an orangutan. The heritage library purchased the book in 2023 through generous support from the ACE/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the National Libraries.
You may now turn over your papers: a history of exams at the RCP
Examinations of medical knowledge have always been a core part of the Royal College of Physicians’ activities. But what was on the syllabus historically? And what was it like to take the exams? We explore those questions in this post.
Katie Birkwood
'The blow struck the world with immense terror’: Accessing emotional reactions to the Black Death of 1348.
Guest blogger, Emily Russell shares her research about emotional responses to the Black Death
Exploring representation of disabled physicians in the RCP collection
Exploring representation of disabled physicians in the RCP collection with volunteer Marta Dagnachew and Gail Chapman, public programmes officer
Indexing the RCP annals
‘He marvelled how the president could be so saucy’: index to the RCP’s first century of Comitia meetings now available