Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hinton, John (1603?-1682)
HINTON, Sir JOHN, M.D. (1603?–1682), royalist, was born in London about 1603. On 10 April 1633 he entered Leyden University (Leyden Students, Index Soc., p. 49), where he probably proceeded M.D. He presented himself at the censor's board of the Royal College of Physicians on 6 Feb. 1634, but, as he had not then been engaged in practice for the statutable period of four years, was not examined. On 7 Nov. 1640 he again appeared at the college, and presented letters from the Earl of Dorchester, testifying that he had been appointed physician to the queen. After the outbreak of the civil war Hinton busied himself in promoting a petition to the Long parliament styled ‘The Inns of Court Peticion for Peace,’ for which he was repeatedly examined, as he alleges, by the House of Commons, and before long found it expedient to fly from home. There is no mention of any such examination in the ‘Journals’ of the House of Commons. He joined the king at York, marched with the army to Beverley, Hull, and Nottingham, and was present at the battle of Edgehill (1642). Accompanying the king to Oxford he was there created M.D. on 1 Nov. 1642 (Wood, Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 48), and was appointed physician in ordinary to Prince Charles. By the king's command he attended the queen to Exeter, where she gave birth in 1644 to the Princess Henrietta, and afterwards saw the queen into Cornwall and safely embarked for France. He was examined before the council of state on 27 Aug. 1649 (Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1649–50, p. 545). Hinton appears to have resided for some time at the Hague in the suite of Charles II. On his return to London he was placed in confinement and frequently examined, but, to use his own words, ‘by the means and intercession of some zealous women, my patients,’ who were afraid of dying from want of his treatment, was at length liberated. According to his own account a close watch was, however, kept on him until the Restoration.
He was certainly in London in July 1655, and, although a ‘suspect,’ was allowed to remain there on account of his patients (ib. Dom., 1655, p. 250). After the Restoration he was appointed physician in ordinary to the king and queen, and in December 1664 was admitted an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. ‘At the latter end of the plague’ (1665) he was knighted, in recognition of his having procured a private advance of money for the Duke of Albemarle to pay the army. In 1679 he presented a memorial to the king in which he set forth, in the form of an autobiography, the losses he had incurred during the civil war and afterwards, and praying that such might be made good either to him or his children. One hundred copies of these ‘Memoires’ were printed from the original manuscript in 1814. A less accurate version is given in Ellis's ‘Original Letters,’ 3rd ser. iv. 296–311. Hinton lived in the parish of St. Bride, London, but before his death removed to the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. He must have died in poverty during the autumn of 1682, for on 14 Nov. of that year administration of his estate was granted to Humphrey Weld, a principal creditor (Administration Act Book, P. C. C., 1682, f. 154).
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. (1878) i. 329; Martin's Cat. of Privately Printed Books, p. 562; authorities cited.]