Background
Samuel Garth was born in 1661 in Bolam, United Kingdom.
Samuel Garth was born in 1661 in Bolam, United Kingdom.
Samuel Garth entered Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1676, graduating with a Bachelorof Arts degree in 1679 and a Master of Arts degree in 1684. He took a Doctor of Medicine and became a member of the College of Physicians in 1691.
Samuel Garth settled as a physician in London and soon acquired a large practice. He ended his career as physician to George I, who knighted him in 1714.
In 1699 Samuel Garth was called to give evidence in what became known as the Sarah Stout Affair. Spencer Cowper, a lawyer and member of a prominent Hertfordshire family, was accused with some friends of the murder of a Quaker woman called Sarah Stout. The prosecution asserted that because the body was floating when found, that it must have been put in the water after death. Opinions was given at the trial by Samuel Garth and Hans Sloane. It appears that aside from the fact that the body was floating when found, there was no other evidence to support the charge. The defendants were acquitted, but the case remains interesting as an early example of attempts to use 'expert testimony' and forensic science evidence in a trial.
Samuel Garth is also remembered as the author of Claremont, a descriptive poem. He translated the Life of Otho in the fifth volume of Dryden's Plutarch, and also edited a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, to which Addison, Pope, and others contributed. For a while, he owned the manor of Edgcott in Buckinghamshire.
Samuel Garth was a zealous Whig, the friend of Addison and, though of different political views, of Pope.
Samuel Garth was a member of Royal Society and became a member of the College of Physicians in 1691.