The Riddell Collection of Wax Seals:
Seal Life Stories: the remarkable careers of 23 individuals from the Riddell Collection of Wax Seals
22: professor thomas charles hope (1766-1844)
Professor Thomas Charles Hope (mezzotint by T. Hodgetts after Sir Henry Raeburn. Licence: Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0)
Born in Edinburgh to John Hope and Juliana Hope (nee Stevenson) who was the daughter of an Edinburgh physician. Thomas studied at Edinburgh High School and Dumfries before attending the University of Edinburgh. His father had had a very successful career as King’s Botanist, Fourth Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden, and Professor of Medicine and Botany at Edinburgh University. Thomas wished to succeed his father as Chair of Botany, and spent many additional years in study. He was not successful in this appointment and instead was appointed Lecturer in Chemistry in the University of Glasgow, later becoming Professor of Medicine in 1791.
In 1787, Hope became the first University lecturer to teach his students about the ideas of Antoine Lavoisier, dismissing the phlogiston theory. The phlogiston theory asserted that when inflammable material burns, an ‘element’ named phlogiston is released. He later experimented with strontium carbonate, paving the way for the discover of the element strontium, and discovered the temperature at which water reaches its greatest density (39 - 40 °F).
He was an inspirational teacher, one of the first to give practical classes, he put a great deal of effort into his lectures – a young Darwin remarked that his lectures during his first year "were intolerably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry by Hope..."
In 1826 he gave lectures to the public at which women were admitted. Lord Cockburn wrote at the time - "The fashionable place here now is the College; where Dr Thomas Charles Hope lectures to ladies on Chemistry. He receives 300 of them by a back window, which he has converted into a door... I wish some of his experiments would blow him up. Each female student would get a bit of him".
Dr Hope’s seal is green, which may indicate that the letter was for friendly/casual correspondence, but is an unusual colour, the only one of its kind in the collection – this may indicate that the owner had a flamboyant public identity, and certainly fits with descriptions of the time.