William Clift

William Clift, (1775–1849), British naturalist, born at Burcombe, about half a mile from the town of Bodmin in Cornwall, on 14 February 1775, was the youngest of the seven children of Robert Clift, who died a few years later, leaving his wife and family in the depths of poverty.

The boy was sent to school at Bodmin, and his taste for drawing came under the notice of Colonel Walter Raleigh Gilbert of the Priory, Bodmin, and his wife, ‘a lady of great accomplishments,’ with whom he was soon established as a great favourite. Mrs. Gilbert had been a schoolfellow of Miss Home, and kept up a correspondence with her friend after her marriage to John Hunter, the celebrated physician. She recommended Clift as an apprentice to Hunter, stating that he was qualified by his quickness and by his natural taste for drawing, which was shown in his eagerness ‘to come into her kitchen in Cornwall and make drawings with chalk on the floor.’

Clift arrived in London on 14 February 1792, his own and Hunter's birthday, and as he at once gave satisfaction to Hunter, was apprenticed without the payment of a fee, on the understanding that he was ‘to write and make drawings, to dissect and take part in the charge of the museum’ which his master had formed at the back of his house in Leicester Square. While Hunter lived this system of labour proved satisfactory to both of them. The pupil waited on his master at his dissections or wrote from his dictation from early morning until late at night. Hunter died on 16 October 1793, but his death made no difference in Clift's attachment to his master's memory. So long as life lasted Clift used to call him a truly honest man, and to ridicule the slanders that envy endeavoured to fasten on his character.

For six years he was engaged by Hunter's executors to watch over the collections, living with an old housekeeper in the house in Castle Street, his pay being limited to ‘seven shillings a week,’ although bread had risen to war prices. For the safety of these specimens he was solely responsible, and he kept zealous guard over his charge, copying and preserving many, probably a half, of Hunter's manuscripts which would otherwise have perished. Clift was unwearied in cleaning, and on the purchase of the collection by parliament it was in a better state than at its owner's death. When the Corporation of Surgeons agreed to undertake the charge of the collection, and was incorporated by a charter dated 22 March 1800 as the Royal College of Surgeons, one of its first acts was to retain Clift in his place, dignifying him with the title of conservator of the museum, and rewarding his services with a salary of about £100. a year. From that date his time and talents ‘were exclusively devoted to the advancement of comparative anatomy and physiology.’ His pride was in his daily work, and he lived to see the museum ‘enriched, enlarged, and worthily displayed and illustrated.’ Under his supervision Hunter's collections were twice removed without the slightest damage, first in 1806 to a temporary place of deposit, and on the second occasion in 1813 to the museum of the college, and the whole of the specimens were more than once numbered by him.

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