Last month David Kravitz and Susan Goldsmith discussed lists for legal and
medical professionals.

For the legal profession, a directory called 'The Law List' has been
published continuously since as early as 1775 although that was not its
exact name in the early years. The City of London Guildhall Library
catalogue states holdings >from 1841 onwards although they must have a
scatter of earlier ones since I've consulted them. The location of other
near full sets would be interesting to know about.

Each list is organised hierarchically beginning with the Law Lords going
through the Q.C.s and barristers then ending with the ordinary
attorneys/solicitors. In the early 19thC there is no more than name and
address recorded although a second address can be included, thus I
discovered my 3xg-grandfather kept a 'country cottage' at the top of
Hornsey Road in Islington for some decades >from the 1820s.

I missed a talk in the winter by a Fellow >from Wellcome Trust's History of
Medicine Library which was a pity but they will have one of the best
collections of available directories of physicians equivalent to the legal
profession.
http://library.wellcome.ac.uk/
They seem to have directories of American doctors listed in the online
catalogue so perhaps the converse is true in the counterpart libraries in
the USA.

In our message archive Hazel Dakers some years ago also mentioned the Royal
College of Surgeons as a separate entity and worth following up.

Peter Glass, London

=

At 11:34 22/06/06 +0300, you wrote:
>
Susan Goldsmith asked "Is there a UK national list for professions (if one
does not know the city where the person is located)? "

All UK public libraries with a reference section have lists for all
professions. If you are not a resident in the UK, you could ask someone to
do a look-up and many librarians are helpful enough to do so as well.

David Kravitz
Netanya, Israel
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