Alexander Hunter

He spent the next year or two studying in London, in Rouen (under Le Cat), and in Paris (under Petit), and on his return to Edinburgh received his doctorate (MD) in 1753 (thesis, 'De Cantharidibus').

He took an active part in founding the Agricultural Society at York in 1770, 'and to give respectability to the institution, he prevailed on the members to reduce their thoughts and observations into writing.'

His continued interest in rural economy was shown in an elaborate illustrated edition, with notes, of John Evelyn's Sylva, 1776 (reprinted in 1786, in 2 vols.

He was author of a tract on the curability of consumption, extracted from a manuscript of William White of York, of which a French translation by A.

A. Tardy (London, 1793) appeared; and also of a cookery-book, called 'Culina Famulatrix Medicinæ,’ first published in 1804, reprinted in 1805, 1806, and 1807, and finally in 1820 under the title 'Receipts in Modern Cookery.'

He was twice married: first, in 1765, to Elizabeth Dealtry of Gainsborough (who died circa 1798), by whom he had one daughter and two sons, and secondly, in 1799, to Anne Bell of Welton, near Hull, who survived him.