Catalogue description Baldwin Hamey, Junior 1600-1676 F. 1634

By Matthew (?) Snelling,

Three-quarter length, seated in a red armchair at a table; a bust of Hippocrates on the table; puffed black velvet cap; long grey-white hair; dark brown eyes; black gown; a reddish curtain behind; on the right, shelves filled with yellow-brown folios, on the table also a bust of Aristophanes; inscribed; Baldvinus, Hamey. M.D.

Snelling is an obscure painter who seems also to have worked in miniature. Another portrait of Hamey, possibly by the same painter, and of about the same period, but of a different pattern, belongs to the Ellicombe family of Chudleigh. An engraving after William Stukeley and the pen and ink sketch in the College (signed and dated by Ditchfield, 1858) are probably derived from the College picture. Exhibited at the National Portrait Exhibition, 1866 (956).

Presented in 1700 by the sitter's nephew, Ralph Palmer, who describes the picture in his manuscript life of Hamey, 1733 (in the College Library): "an half length of Him, with ye Statuary heads of Hippocrates and Aristophanes before him ... done by Snelling when he was seventy-four years old" (p. 13).

Ralph Palmer, Life of the most eminent Dr. Baldwin Hamey, ms. 1733; Hatton, 1708; Vertue; 1864 Catalogue, p. 6; Roll, I, 215/6; III, 396; 1900 List; 1926 Catalogue; C. H. Collins Baker, Lely and the Stuart Portrait Painters, 1912, II, p. 218; J. J. Keevil, The Stranger's Son, 1953, pp. 183, 213, and reproduction as frontispiece.

Baldwin Hamey was educated at Leyden and Oxford, and married Anna Patin, the daughter of a wealthy merchant of Rotterdam.

As a faithful member of the Church of England and a devoted royalist he was dismayed by the political events which marked the early years of his practice. At one time, though he was then entering full professional employment, he had serious thoughts of leaving London. A severe illness intervened and, when he recovered, the arrival of an influential patient, who rewarded him well for his advice and who was followed by others, encouraged him to stay.

Hamey's sympathies, though he was practising among the leading men of the Commonwealth and basking in their favour, were wholly with the exiled Royal Family. He inherited plenty of money and for many years had a large and lucrative practice; as he had no family, few personal wants, and was careful in his domestic expenditure, he could give full rein to his benevolent and charitable disposition. He sent Charles II several sums of money during the hardships of his exile, he was a liberal benefactor to many poor scholars, and he assisted greatly in the repair of many churches.

In 1651, when the spoliation of church property began, the College was situated in Amen Corner on ground belonging to St. Paul's. It was thus liable to be confiscated at any moment. Dr. Hamey, with a generosity for which he will always be held in honour, redeemed the property out of his own pocket and made it over in perpetuity to his colleagues.

Dr. Hamey contributed liberally to the fund for rebuilding the College after the fire of 1666, and in addition he paid for the Coenaculum to be wainscoted with fine Spanish oak, at a cost of some hundreds of pounds. Part of this wainscoting was moved from Warwick Lane to Pall Mall East, and again is being moved, as one of the glories of the Censors' room, to Regent's Park. The last of his great gifts to the College was to purchase the estate and manor of Ashlins, in Essex, which he settled on the College of Physicians in trust and by his will confirmed it to the College for ever.