Remembering Slavery Online Exhibition
Dr. Thomas Winterbottom
Dr Thomas Masterman Winterbottom
Dr Winterbottom was born in 1766 in Dean Street, South Shields. In 1792 he gained his medical degree and in a matter of months became a doctor in the Colony of Sierra Leone in Africa - a new homeland for former enslaved black Americans. Dr Winterbottom wrote about the medical practices of the native Africans and about illness in the middle passage based on his experiences in Sierra Leone. After spending four years there, he returned home to South Shields where he took over his father's medical practice.
