James Hunt (1833 – 29 August 1869) was an anthropologist and speech therapist in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, England, during this middle of the nineteenth century. His clients included Charles Kingsley, Leo Tennyson (son of the poet laureate Alfred Tennyson), and

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

(Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) author of ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''. Lewis Carroll was a children’s author, mathematician, and clergyman. He had a stammer that was said to have affected his job. The 1861 census shows that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was staying at Ore House in 1861 and being treated by Dr. Hunt a psellismolligist. Since his book was published in 1865 it is quite possible that some of it was written during his stay. His other main interest was in anthropology and in 1863 he established the Anthropological Society of London, which after his death merged with the more established Ethnological Society of London to become the Royal Anthropological Institute.

Career

James Hunt was born in Swanage, Dorset, the son of the speech therapist Thomas Hunt (1802–1851) and his wife Mary. He was trained by his father in the art of curing stuttering by means of breath exercises, muscle control and building the patient's confidence. He bought a doctorate from the

University of Giessen University of Giessen, official name Justus Liebig University Giessen (german: Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen), is a large public research university in Giessen, Hesse, Germany. It is named after its most famous faculty member, Justus von ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

and set up a practice in 1856 in Regent Street,

. He dedicated his first ''Manual'' on the subject to Charles Kingsley who spent three weeks with him in 1859. He moved to

Hastings Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...

where ran residential courses during the summer season with his sister Elizabeth's husband, Rev. Henry F. Rivers.

Anthropology

In 1854 he joined the Ethnological Society of London because of his interest in racial differences and from 1859 to 1862 was the honorary secretary. However many members of this society disliked his attacks on humanitarian and missionary societies and the anti-slavery movement. So in 1863 with the help of the explorer Richard Burton he set up the Anthropological Society of London, becoming its first president. His paper ''The Negro's place in nature'' was greeted with boos and hisses when given at the British Association meeting in 1863 because of its defense of slavery in the

Confederate States of America The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...

and belief in the

plurality of the human species Polygenism is a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human races are of different origins (''polygenesis''). This view is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity. Modern scientific views no ...

. He established the ''Anthropological Review'' as the organ of the society and by 1867 the membership of the Society had reached 500. However, by 1867 allegations by one of the members Hyde Clarke of financial irregularities in his running of the society caused his temporary resignation as president, though he returned in 1868 when Clarke was expelled. This took a toll on his health and in 1869 he died of an inflammation of the brain. The society shortly afterwards started discussions to merge with the Ethnological Society. He left a widow, Henrietta, and five children and left his books to his nephew

W.H.R. Rivers William Halse Rivers Rivers FRS FRAI ( – ) was an English anthropologist, neurologist, ethnologist and psychiatrist known for treatment of First World War officers suffering shell shock, so they could be returned to combat. Rivers' most ...

who refused them, though, through unconnected means, he later became an anthropologist himself.

Publications

* ''Manual of the Philosophy of Voice and Speech'', 1859 * ''Stammering and Stuttering, their nature and treatment'', London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1861. * "The Negro's Place in Nature" (1863), ''Memoirs read before the Anthropological Society of London'', 1865.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunt, James 1833 births 1869 deaths Speech and language pathologists British anthropologists Fellows of the Ethnological Society of London White supremacists

Career

Anthropology

Publications

Further reading

References