Edmund Physick (34)

Edmund Physick (c. 1727–7 June 1804) was a civil servant and agent of the Penn family as well as a member of the Young Junto, elected c. 1758, who saw the organization transformed into the American Society in 1766 and united with the American Philosophical Society in 1769. Born in England, he immigrated to Pennsylvania around age fifteen, where he served as an assistant to APS member Lynford Lardner, Receiver-General of Quit-Rents. In 1753, Pennsylvania proprietor Thomas Penn jointly appointed Physick and APS member Richard Hockley as receivers-general, and in 1769 Physick took sole possession of that office and the office of keeper of the great seal of Pennsylvania. While the American Revolution did not impact Physick personally, it made his rent-collecting and record-keeping duties impossible, especially after the proprietors’ unsurveyed lands were expropriated by the new state in 1779. Physick continued to assist the Penns thereafter, traveling to London twice for this purpose. On the second of these trips he brought his son (and future APS member) Philip Syng Physick, who studied medicine there with APS member John Hunter. Thereafter, the elder Physick worked with future Pennsylvania Governor (and APS member) Thomas McKean to extract Penn quit-rents in Delaware. Physick was a member of the Library Company of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture. In addition to his son, his brother-in-law Philip Syng III was a member of the Young Junto, and his father-in-law Philip Syng, Jr., and grandson John S. Dorsey were members of the APS. (PI)