Physician, benefactor of the British Museum and an early benefactor to the Chelsea Physic Garden. Responsible for the addition of milk to chocolate to produce a palatable drink. Born Killyleagh, Ireland. He married a wealthy sugar plantation heiress and partly funded his collection from enslaved labour on Jamaican sugar plantations. President of the Royal Society and of the College of Physicians.
In 1737 bought the dilapidated Beaufort House in Chelsea and demolished it. Died at home, the Manor House in Cheyne Walk, which was demolished soon after his death. Buried at Chelsea Old Church.
August 2020: The Guardian reported that, following the Black Lives Matter protests, the British Museum announced that they had removed a bust of Sloane into a glass cabinet where Sloane's links to slavery will also be displayed.
From the British Library: "Hans Sloane was born in Ulster ... and trained as a physician. An avid collector from an early age, he acquired over 200,000 plant and animal specimens, 71,000 objects, and over 50,000 books, manuscripts, prints and drawings. These later became the foundation collection of the British Museum. Sloane travelled to Jamaica in 1687 as physician to the island’s British colonial Governor and worked as a doctor on slave plantations. Using the expertise of enslaved West Africans and English planters, he collected hundreds of plant and animal specimens. When he returned to London, Sloane married Elizabeth Langley Rose, an heiress to sugar plantations in Jamaica. He was a shareholder in the Royal African and South Sea Companies, both of which profited from the slave trade. His medical income, his investments, and the profits from the forced labour on his wife’s plantations enabled Sloane to build such a large collection."
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