A Norman Macbeth portrait of Hugh Miller (1812-1879).
Miller was an Ayrshire lawyer who took classes in medicine at the University of Glasgow and Anderson's College and was licensed to practice by the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1835. Following an unsuccessful application to become the surgeon at the Town's Hospital he went to join his brother Alexander in Bombay, as a Free Church of Scotland medical missionary. He purchased a coffee plantation in Ceylon, which turned out to be a profitable speculation earning him up to £10,000 per year during the coffee price boom of the 1860s.
Miller returned to Glasgow in 1860. He graduated MD from the University and was made a Fellow of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. On his death in 1879 he left £20,000 to Free Church medical missions.
Reference: RCPSG, Illustrations used in The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow by Tom Gibson
Reproduced with the permission of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow
Keywords:
Anderson's College, Anderson's University, benefactors, coffee plantations, Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, Free Church of Scotland, lawyers, medical missionaries, medical missions, philanthropists, physicians, portraits, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, surgeons, Town's Hospital, University of Glasgow