Millie Watkins – a final year history student from Bath Spa University – and Dr Roger Rolls, Chair of Trustees at The Bath Medical Museum, have jointly produced a joint FREE exhibition about Bath Apothecaries, Pharmacies and Pharmacists over the last three centuries at Bath Medical Museum, in The Hetling Pump Room.
The exhibition opened on Saturday October 26th and will run until Sunday November 3rd everyday from 12pm to 4pm. It is free and there are lots of fun activities for families, as well as intriguing exhibits from Bath’s first hospital and its apothecary which opened in 1742 as The General Hospital and morphed gloriously into the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, known to one and all as ‘The Min’.
Millie has researched the life of John Morris (the first apothecary at the hospital) and his family and their intriguing life in Bath. As part of this she has arranged a loan from the RUH of the very heavy, cast, bronze mortar which weighs well over two stones, as well as other mind boggling items such shiny, bronze badges which all patients had to wear.
Millie has also devised a fascinating game which enables visitors to be an apothecary themselves.
Dr Roger researched the the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s national meeting in Bath in 1924 and as well as a variety of associated exhibits he has devised a self guided walking trail which visits all sites associated with pharmacists and pharmacies in 1924. The ‘Trail’ which starts at the BMM can be obtained at The Hetling Pump Room, just opposite The Hot Bath.
Apparently, the first day was very busy with visitors including a group of eight from Jesus College Oxford, two pharmacists from California and another from Hong Kong. They were thrilled and charmed by all the apparently useful, but idiosyncratic exhibits.
What a splendid achievement! It sounds terrific and a must see. Well done.