John Thomas Quekett

John Thomas Quekett (11 August 1815 – 20 August 1861) was an English microscopist and histologist.

Quekett studied medicine at the London Hospital in 1831. He became a licentiate of the Apothecaries' Company and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons.

In 1839, he founded the Royal Microscopical Society. In 1843 he was appointed assistant conservator of the Hunterian Museum, and in 1856 conservator of the museum and professor of histology on the retirement of professor Richard Owen.

Quekett, born at Langport, Somerset, on 11 August 1815, was the youngest son of William Quekett and Mary, daughter of John Bartlett. The father was at Cockermouth grammar school with William and Christopher Wordsworth, and from 1790 till his death in 1842 was master of Langport grammar school. He educated his sons at home, and each of them was encouraged to collect specimens in some branch of natural history. The eldest brother, William Quekett, was a rector and author.

When only sixteen John gave a course of lectures on microscopic subjects, illustrated by original diagrams and by a microscope which he had himself made out of a roasting-jack, a parasol, and a few pieces of brass purchased at a neighbouring marine-store shop. On leaving school he was apprenticed, first to a surgeon in Langport, and afterwards to his brother Edwin John Quekett, entering King's College, London, and the London Hospital medical school. In 1840 he qualified at Apothecaries' Hall, and at the Royal College of Surgeons won the three-years studentship in human and comparative anatomy, then first instituted.

He formed a most extensive and valuable collection of microscopic preparations, injected by himself, illustrating the tissues of plants and animals in health and in disease, and showing the results and uses of microscopic investigation. In November 1843 he was appointed by the College of Surgeons assistant conservator of the Hunterian Museum, under Professor (afterwards Sir) Richard Owen, and in 1844 he was appointed demonstrator of minute anatomy. In 1846 his collection of two thousand five hundred preparations was purchased by the college, and he was directed to prepare a descriptive illustrated catalogue of the whole histological collection belonging to the college, of which they constituted the chief part. In 1852 the title of his demonstratorship was changed to that of professor of histology; and on Owen's obtaining permission to reside at Richmond, Quekett was appointed resident conservator, finally succeeding Owen as conservator in 1856. His health, however, soon failed, and he died at Pangbourne, Berkshire, whither he had gone for the benefit of his health, on 20 Aug. 1861.

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