Doctors & Scientists | Untold Stories

Sequeira, a popular physician among the nobility and the gentry, moved from Lisbon in the 1760s and took up residence initially in Canonbury. Soon afterwards he moved to Barnsbury Place, where Sutton Dwellings stand today. By coincidence this was near to where Barnsbury Hall, in which the North London Synagogue originated, would be built a century later.

Pereira was born in Shoreditch and lived for much of his life in Finsbury, at 20 Artillery Place, and later at 47 Finsbury Square. After training as an apothecary he became a physician, lecturing at the Royal College of Surgeons and at the London Hospital. His book Materia Medica (1842) helped to put use of drugs on a scientific footing.

Suess, an expert on the geology of the Alps, was born at 4 Duncan Terrace. His father was a Lutheran from Saxony and his mother from a Jewish family in Prague. Suess's family moved back to Europe when he was 10. He taught at the University of Vienna and later served in the Austrian Parliament, joining the struggle against antisemitism.

Lowry was brought up in Featherstone Street, Finsbury. The Delvalle family were 'small but prosperous' snuff and tobacco merchants who had been living in London since at least the 1730s. Rebecca married the engraver and geologist Wilson Lowry, a founding member of the Geological Society. She home-schooled their daughter, Delvalle Elizabeth Rebecca, who succeeded her in distinction as a mineralogist.

Signy was born in Stepney to parents who had immigrated from Russia. His father was a rabbi at the New Synagogue. Aaron lived at 23 Alwyne Road, Canonbury, working as a doctor at Great Ormond Street and at the London Fever Hospital in Islington. He captained the British Olympic fencing team in Tokyo in 1964 and in Mexico City in 1970.