[ James Currie, Scottish physician in Liverpool. ] Autograph Signature ('Ja Currie') to manuscript minute of meeting of 'Church-Wardens Sides-men & physicians of the two Charities held at the Dispensary', regarding plans for a fever hospital.

This document is of particular interest as it concerns the foundation of the institution that would become the Royal Free Hospital, Liverpool. As a result of the meeting described in the present document, the Institution for the Care and Prevention of Contagious Fevers opened in 1802 at 2 Constitution Row, Grays Inn Lane. It was the first voluntary fever hospital and had 15 beds. 2pp., 8vo. On a leaf which appears to have been extracted from a minute book. On laid paper with watermark 'JOSEPH COLES | 1799'. In fair condition, aged and worn, with closed tears to fold lines, some of which have been repaired with paper labels. The text carries a few deletions and emendations. The first page is headed: 'At a Meeting of the Church-Wardens Sides-men & physicians of the two Charities held at the Dispensary 24 April 1801, for the purpose of carrying into execution the proposed Building per the reception of fever & other contagious diseases'. A list of those present follows in two columns, beginning with the two church-wardens 'Mr Makin' and 'Mr Taylor'; then the two sides-men 'Mr Bevan' and 'Mr Hope'; then 'Mr Blackstock | Clerk to the parish', and 'Dr Rutter Dr Lewin | Dr. Renwick | Dr. Bostock | Dr. Gerard & | Dr. Currie | Dr Brandreth' [the last three linked as 'Ph[ysicians] to the Disp[ensar]y'. Following the list comes: 'It was | Resolved, | That a plan formerly [sic] prepared shall be engraved on a letter sheet of paper & to be sent to Gentlemen in different parts of the Kingdom engaged in the superintendance [sic] of hospitals for fever, for the purpose of recovering the benefit of their observations [here] | After which the meeting adjourned to the open Ground behind the Work-house in order to fix the scale of the intended building'. The document ends with the date of the next meeting, 'at the work-house in order to determine finally on the plan'. Accompanying the item is an engraved portrait of Currie, and a cutting of an article from a twentieth-century magazine.