Blackwell, ALEXANDER

Blackwell, ALEXANDER, adventurer, seems to have been born in Aberdeen about the beginning of the 18th century, and to have been a younger son of the Rev. Thomas Blackwell (1660-1728), principal of Marischal College. He may, or may not, have studied medicine under Boerhaave at Leyden; anyhow, about 1730, he was a printer in London, and becoming bankrupt in 1734, was supported in prison by his wife, who published a Herbal (2 vols. folio, 1737-39) with 500 cuts of plants, drawn, engraved, and coloured by herself, her husband adding their Latin names, with a brief description of each. Next, in 1742, Blackwell turns up in Sweden, where, having cured the king of an illness, he was appointed one of the royal physicians, and undertook the management of a model farm. While still in the full enjoyment of court favour, he was charged with being concerned in a plot against the constitution, and after being put to the torture, was beheaded, August 9, 1747, protesting his innocence to the last.