Sir Everard Home, 1st Baronet,FRS (6 May 1756, inKingston upon Hull – 31 August 1832, inLondon) was a Britishsurgeon.
Home was born in Kingston-upon-Hull and educated atWestminster School. He gained a scholarship toTrinity College,Cambridge, but decided instead to become a pupil of his brother-in-law,John Hunter, atSt George's Hospital.[1] Hunter had married his sister, the poet and socialiteAnne Home, in July 1771.[2] He assisted Hunter in many of his anatomical investigations, and in the autumn of 1776 he partly described Hunter's collection. There is also considerable evidence that Home plagiarized Hunter's work, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly; he also systematically destroyed his brother-in-law's papers in order to hide evidence of this plagiarism. It seems likely that the fire (in Home's apartments at Chelsea Hospital) which destroyed the Hunterian manuscripts in Home's possession also destroyed a precious collection of 26 microscopes originally made byvan Leeuwenhoek, which Home had borrowed from theRoyal Society.[3][4]:123
Having qualified at Surgeons' Hall in 1778, Home was appointed assistant surgeon at the naval hospital,Plymouth. In 1787 he was appointed assistant surgeon, later surgeon, at St George's Hospital. He became Sergeant Surgeon to the King in 1808 and Surgeon at Chelsea Hospital in 1821. He was made a baronet (of Well Manor in the County of Southampton) in 1813.
He was elected aFellow of the Royal Society in 1787, gave theirCroonian Lecture many times between 1793 and 1829 and received theirCopley Medal in 1807.[5] He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1832.[6]
Home published prolifically on human and animalanatomy. He was the first to describe the fossil creature (later 'Ichthyosaur') discovered near Lyme Regis byJoseph Anning andMary Anning in 1812. FollowingJohn Hunter, he initially suggested it had affinities with fish. Home also did some of the earliest studies on the anatomy of platypus and noted that it was notviviparous, theorizing that it was insteadovoviviparous.[7] He was also the first to propose thatmelanin acts a sunscreen.[8]
A species of tortoise,Kinixys homeanaBell, 1827, is named in his honor.[9]
His son,James Everard Home, became an eminent officer in theRoyal Navy.[10]
| Baronetage of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| New creation | Baronet (of Well Manor) 1813–1832 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by |  Home baronets of Well Manor 2 January 1813 | Succeeded by |
