Spadacrene Anglica: the English Spa Fountain

Part 1

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Transcriber's Note: A carat is used in some instances to indicate superscript. If part is in brackets, then only those letters in brackets are superscripted and the rest of the word is the normal size.

SPADACRENE ANGLICA. OR, The English Spa Fountain.

BY EDMUND DEANE, M.D. OXON.

The First Work on the Waters of Harrogate.

REPRINTED WITH INTRODUCTION BY JAMES RUTHERFORD, L.R.C.P. ED.

AND BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES BY ALEX. BUTLER, M.B.

BRISTOL: JOHN WRIGHT & SONS LTD. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LTD. 1922

INTRODUCTION.

If the Author of "Spadacrene Anglica" could see our modern Harrogate, for whose existence he is to no small extent responsible, he would be justly entitled to consider his labours as well spent, however surprised he might be at the change that had taken place in the village as he knew it in the year 1626. For so was Harrogate in those years, a small scattered hamlet, part of that great Royal Forest of Knaresborough, extending westward from the town of Knaresborough for about 20 miles towards Bolton Abbey, with an average depth of about 8 miles from North to South, a Royal Forest, as Grainge in his History thereof premises, from the year 1130 until 1775. Not only the change in the physical aspect of Harrogate would have been noted by our author. Since his days, within a radius of a few miles, have been found over 80 mineral springs, whereby Harrogate is distinguished from all other European health resorts. Not that the curative powers of these waters were altogether unknown before Edmund Deane extolled the merits of the Tuewhit Well in "Spadacrene Anglica." Indeed, he would be a bold man who would dogmatically lay down at what period the powers of these waters were unknown. Thus, in mediæval times the waters of St. Mungo's and St. Robert's were accredited with miraculous powers. The Tuewhit Well itself derives its name, according to some authorities, from its association in pre-Roman times with the pagan God Teut.

"Spadacrene Anglica" was published by Dr. Edmund Deane, an eminent physician of York, in the year 1626, and passed through three editions after his death. All these editions are very scarce, and although there are copies of the four editions in the British Museum, there are only two other copies known to exist. I was indeed fortunate, therefore, when some seventeen years ago I picked up a copy in a well-known second-hand book shop in Harrogate. Now I am reprinting it, not so much for its interest to my professional brethren as a quaint and learned contribution to medical literature in the seventeenth century, but because it is the earliest and most indispensable source of the history of the waters of Harrogate.

A careful study of it will correct a number of remarkable errors, which now pass current as historical facts in connection with the rise into fame of Harrogate as our premier Spa. These errors would never have arisen had there been a more free access to this very scarce book. Most writers appear to have depended for their knowledge of its contents upon the summary of it contained in Dr. Thomas Short's "History of Mineral Waters," published about a century after the publication of "Spadacrene Anglica." In commenting on this and other works abridged in his History, the learned author states:

"Some of them are very scarce and rare. Therefore, such as have them not, have here their whole substance, and need not trouble themselves for the treatises." Unfortunately, they did not have their "whole substance," and hence these errors.

"Spadacrene Anglica" deals mainly with the Tuewhit Well or the English Spa. It is not my intention to discuss here either the history of its distinguished author or the early history of the English Spa. This task has been kindly undertaken for me by my friend and colleague, Dr. Alexander Butler, to whom I take this opportunity to express my grateful thanks for his very suggestive contribution.

Suffice it for the purpose of this short introduction to state that the medicinal qualities of the Tuewhit Well were discovered about fifty-five years prior to the publication of "Spadacrene Anglica," the credit of the discovery being due to a certain Mr. William Slingsby, not to his nephew, Sir William Slingsby as has been persistently but erroneously stated. The Tuewhit Well was first designated "The English Spa" in or about the year 1596 by Timothy Bright, M.D., sometime rector of both Methley and Barwick in Elmet, near Leeds, which goes far to support the well established belief that the waters of the Tuewhit Well were the first to be used internally for medicinal purposes in England. To-day the word Spa is, of course, a general term for a health resort possessing mineral waters, but in the days of Dr. Timothy Bright no such meaning attached to it; Spa was the celebrated German health resort, and one can readily conceive with what patriotic enthusiasm Dr. Timothy Bright would proclaim the Tuewhit Well as "The English Spa" when the medicinal properties of this Well were found to resemble those of the two famous medicinal springs of Sauveniere and Pouhon at Spa.

"Spadacrene Anglica" (as already mentioned) was published in 1626. Later in the same year appeared another work on Harrogate, entitled "News out of Yorkshire," by Michael Stanhope, Esq. Further, the time of Mr. William Slingsby's birth has been traced back to between the years 1525 and 1527. The year 1926 is therefore the tercentenary of the publication of Deane's "Spadacrene Anglica," and Stanhope's "News out of Yorkshire," and may also be regarded as the quatercentenary of the birth of Mr. William Slingsby. What a triple event for commemoration!

In this edition of "Spadacrene Anglica" the original title-page and initial letters have been artistically reproduced by the publishers; the text has not been modernized except in the case of the old vowel forms I and U for the consonants J and V. Otherwise, the original spelling and the use of capitals and italics have been retained. The long S has not been retained. With these slight changes one cannot but admire the forceful English in which it is written, and the clearness of the style of the author.

I am indebted to my daughter Dorothy for the sketch of the Tuewhit Well.

JAMES RUTHERFORD.

Saint Mungo, 12, York Road, Harrogate, 1921.

Biographical Notes OF Edmund Deane, M.D. and others in relation to the Tuewhit Well, The English Spa.

BY ALEX. BUTLER, M.B.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

=of Edmund Deane and others in relation to the English Spa.=

The present reprint of "Spadacrene Anglica" should arouse a keen literary interest in its author, Edmund Deane, and in the early history of Harrogate. As one who had the privilege of reading the original edition of this work, belonging to Dr. Rutherford, I was struck by the marked contrast between Deane's account of the history of the medicinal waters of Harrogate, and that which is to be found in more recent writings on that subject.

These modern accounts cannot be better or more authoritatively exemplified than by taking a short extract from the article "Harrogate" in the "Encyclopædia Britannica."

"The principal chalybeate Springs are the Tewitt well called by Dr. Bright, who wrote the first account of it, the English Spaw, discovered by Captain William Slingsby of Bilton Hall, near the close of the 16th. Century...."

This paragraph, as a statement of facts, accurately sets out what is to be found in more or less detail in the accessible literature of to-day and will be referred to afterwards as the recognised history of Harrogate. It has received the express or tacit sanction of the Corporation of Harrogate and is embodied in its publications. Further a memorial has been erected to Sir William Slingsby, the Captain William Slingsby of Bilton Hall referred to in the above quotation, as the discoverer of the Tuewhit Well.

Part 2

Notwithstanding the complete credence that has been given to this account for many years, I think there can be no doubt that it is entirely erroneous, and that unmerited fame has been given to Sir William Slingsby as the discoverer of the medicinal qualities of the Tuewhit Well, and to Dr. Bright as the author who first wrote an account of it.

Deane's history of the medicinal springs of Harrogate in the Elizabethan period is to be found in the earlier chapters of his book. It is therefore only necessary to mention here that, according to "Spadacrene Anglica" the Tuewhit Well was not discovered by Captain (or Sir) William Slingsby, it was not discovered near the close of the 16th Century, and Dr. Bright did not write an account of it. It is hardly credible that the history as given in the extract from the "Encyclopædia Britannica" is actually derived from "Spadacrene Anglica." Yet such is the case. Owing to the great rarity of the first edition of that book, and the fact that the later editions were all, more or less, abridged or incomplete, a series of plausible conjectures by later writers founded on these imperfect editions has evolved a history of Harrogate in this period which is, as regards the main facts, largely fictitious. The object of the following biographical notes is, briefly, to restate the history of Harrogate during the Elizabethan period, in terms of the only reliable source for such a purpose, and to trace the accumulated errors, as far as possible, to their origin and source, an inquiry which the reprint of "Spadacrene Anglica" at the present time makes not inopportune.

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