The house and grounds now known as The Hermitage, in School Green, Anstruther, were in 1864 the home of the Surgeon Thomas Black, his wife Julia, and his children John, Robert, Elizabeth and Julia. Julia was a great niece on her mother’s side of Stephen Williamson MP, a founder of the Balfour Williamson shipping company of Liverpool. Tragically, this popular, skilful and much admired surgeon was drowned in Anstruther Harbour on the 29th February, 1864, returning at night from visiting a patient in Pittenweem. His story features in an illustrated talk created by our vice-chairman Glenn Jones, The Surgeon and the Painter. The Burgh Collection intends to publish Glenn’s book developed from the talk towards the end of 2024.
Thomas Black was born in Wemyss, Fife on the 1st of March 1818, the son of John Black, baker, and Grizel Black. (Source, Scotland Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950. ) During his education at the local school, his “promising talents” were recognized and encouraged by Dr James Small of East Wemyss, a native of Anstruther. It is reported that Dr Small encouraged him to study medicine, and in 1840, Thomas Black, LRCS, (Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons) graduated from Edinburgh University’s College of Surgeons and joined the Anstruther Medical practice of Dr John Goodsir, who lived at the house then simply known as The Goodsir House. Prior to taking up his medical post in Anstruther, Thomas Black had made two voyages to the Arctic as surgeon two Scottish whaling ships
A blue plaque commemorating Dr John Goodsir sits on the wall of the Hermitage, which was both home and surgery for the Goodsir family. John Goodsir Senior, also a surgeon, had bought the former malt steading around 1816, and set about rebuilding the former barn into “my large dwelling house of three storeys.” He then further extended it towards the east, towards Melville Manse. Dr John Goodsir was a well-known local figure, born in Anstruther in 1814. He was a great enthusiast for natural history, gathering samples of flora and fauna for examination and recording. He built up a small menagerie and collected fossils from local quarries. He kept as a pet a golden eagle, and it is said that local people would bring live animals to feed the eagle. On at least one occasion this meal included, rather gruesomely by our standards, a live cat.
John Goodsir left in 1841 to take up first the post of Conservator at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, and later the chair of Anatomy at the Royal College. Thomas Black, following his graduation, took over the medical practice in 1841. John Goodsir was brother to Henry Goodsir, the Arctic Explorer, who perished on the Franklin Expedition. Searching for the fabled North West Passage on HMS Erebus, Henry Goodsir, Captain Franklin and all of the crew of HMS Erebus were lost in the ice. (The loss of the ship and the finding of its wreck in was the subject of Michael Palin’s excellent and highly recommended book Erebus published in 2019.)
Following the death of her husband, Julia lived on in the house for a number of years. It was later renamed Rosebank, when owned by a veterinarian, and finally the Hermitage, the name it carries today.