Regarding
the Parentage of Dr Quin.
by Peter Morrell
Nude – 2005
– Peter MorrellRegarding the Parentage of Dr Quin.
Homeopathy was introduced into the UK by Dr F H F
Quin in the 1830s. Born and schooled privately in London, Quin was of
aristocratic birth, and is widely regarded as the love-child of Lady
Elizabeth Cavendish, the Duchess of Devonshire and Sir Valentine Richard
Quin, first Earl of Dunraven. Here, Peter Morrell presents some of the
evidence.
Figure 1 Dr Quin as a young
man
Figure 2 Lady Elizabeth Foster
nee Hervey
Figure 3 Richard Valentine Quin
Figure 4 Hervey, Bishop of
Derry, Elizabeth’s Father
Figure 5 Dr Quin in his 60sThe case for his mother being Lady Elizabeth Foster
(1759–1824), seems quite persuasive, if not compelling:1. She is known to have had many love affairs.
2. She had at least two illegitimate children to the
fifth Duke of Devonshire, William Cavendish, one being born only three
weeks before one of his legitimate children born to his wife; both the
illegitimate children were born and raised abroad but later integrated
into her family. She was best friends with the Duke and his wife
Georgiana, the first Duchess, and they formed an inseparable and
well-known high society menage-a-trois.3. She very successfully concealed the identity of
her illegitimate children for as long as required. Therefore, why not
also for a third child?4. She had an affair with an Italian Cardinal,
Cardinal Consalvi (1758-1824), who died only afew months after her.
5. She had big French connections, especially with
the Polignac family (also good Italian connections).6. She could easily have eloped to France, say
December 1798 to February 1799, to give birthto Quin and then returned to London afterwards
without him—precisely as she had donewith her two other illegitimate children.
7. His name Frederick is her father’s name
(Frederick Augustus Hervey, Bishop of Derry, 1730–1803 and fourth Earl
of Bristol) as well as the name of her legitimate son, Frederick Foster
(b. 1777).
8. There is another example of her using the same
name for two of her children; her son Augustus Foster (b. 1780) to her
husband and the illegitimate Augustus Clifford Cavendish (b. 1788) to
the fourth Duke of Devonshire; it is therefore perfectly possible for
her to have named both her sons Frederick. In a sense also it would have
served as a clever foil to help conceal his identity.9. Foster was her name from her first marriage to
John Foster (d.1796).10. Hervey was her maiden (father’s) name.
11. Quin was educated in France and revered by the
French homeopaths as ‘a second Hahnemann,’ which again suggests that
he was probably brought up there.
Figure 6 Lady Caroline Lamb, nee Foster
12. Quin joined her entourage in Naples soon after
his graduation in 1820; he was her doctor.13. All her friends became his friends too; he
integrated quickly and easily into the highest echelons of high society—how
and why? examples include Sir William Gell, Sir William Drummond and the
Count and Countess Blessington. For a time Quin had been a physician to
the Duchess of Devonshire, Prince Leopold [King of Belgium], Queen
Victoria’s uncle, and he was a close friend of d’Orsay, the
Blessingtons, Dickens and Thackeray; he had also treated the Marquess of
Anglesey, Wellington’s companion at Waterloo (Brian Inglis in Fringe
Medicine, 1964, p79).14. There is a definite facial likeness between
herself and Dr Quin, between Quin and her father and between Quin and
her illegitimate daughter to the Duke of Devonshire, Caroline St Jules
Cavendish, who married George Lamb and became Lady Caroline Lamb (b.
1785). The latter would thus have been Quin’s half-sister; as children
they both also had red hair.15. The name Quin must be his father’s name, which
narrows it down almost solely to the 1st Earl of Dunraven,
Valentine Richard Quin [1752-1814]. He therefore remains the most likely
candidate of father.16. Dunraven (an Irish MP) and Lady Eliz both had
strong London and Ireland connections and almost certainly knew each
other because the London social and political scene at that time was
wholly dominated by social gatherings at Devonshire House where the Duke
and Duchesses feted all the rich and famous of the day from the Prince
of Wales and most aristocrats downwards. The Duke even used the services
of the same physician as the Prince of Wales.17. It seems very odd—if not unbelievable—that
Quin should bear the names Frederick, Hervey and Foster and yet have no
possible connections to Lady Elizabeth Foster nee Hervey. Indeed, it is
a dead giveaway—she must have been his mother, even though the
identity of his father remains less certain. What other high society
woman could have given her son those names? It would make no sense to
anyone else, only to her.18. When Lady Elizabeth died in Rome in 1824, found
among her things there was, “a locket carrying a friend’s
reddish-gold curls.” (Foreman, 399) Quin had red hair as a
child. Could it have been the precious keepsake of her ‘lost’ fifth
child?19. Another possible candidate for Quin’s father is
the Irish journalist, bookseller and collector, Henry George Quin
(1760-1805) of Trinity College, Dublin. Quin was a noted collector; he
traveled widely on the continent and bought at auctions there as well as
in Ireland and England.20. There was also the Dublin gem engraver, Dr. Henry
Quin of the same period.
Sources
Arthur Calder-Marshall, The Two Duchesses, London:
Hutchinson, 1978Caroline Chapman & Jane Dormer, Elizabeth and
Georgiana, The Duke of Devonshire and his Two Duchesses, London: John
Murray, 2002Amanda Foreman, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire,
London: Harper Collins, 1999Elizabeth Foster, Children of the Mist, a True and
Informal Account of an Eighteenth Century Scandal, London: Hutchinson,
1960Dorothy Margaret Stuart, Dearest Bess, the Life and
Times of Elizabeth Foster, Duchess of Devonshire, London: Methuen, 1955
