A Respectable Occupation: - University of Hertfordshire Research ...

achieve. 95 Corfield also confirms that professional knowledge was important
and that it was the source of the practitioners ―mysterious powers,‖ 96 but
goes on to add that a high level of social prestige was a necessary
characteristic. All these attributes when developed to the extreme would
lead to a monopoly position. 97
Inevitably there was a transitional period while the change occurred
from a business or trade, to a profession and in the case of the surgeon-
apothecaries, this took place during the latter half of the eighteenth
century. 98 Burnby confirms this view of Loudon‘s, saying that although
between 1660 and 1760 the physicians, surgeons and apothecaries could not
be said to be professionals, they could be considered to be proto-
professionals. 99 Self-regulation of a profession was a key function in order
that the standard of practice could be maintained and client confidence be
preserved. This requirement led to the formation of organised professional
bodies beginning in the eighteenth century. 100 Family connections were
important in obtaining entry to one of the professions; having practitioners
within the family or a father with business contacts made it easier to obtain
an apprenticeship or find a good principal. Once a family had joined the
professional class, it was reluctant to leave and well positioned to stay; very
few returned to their origins. 101
95 Reader, Professional Men, p. 71.
96 P. Corfield, Power and the Professions in Britain 1700-1850 (London and New York, 1995), p. 2.
97 Corfield, Power and the Professions in Britain 1700-1850, pp. 25-26.
98 Loudon, „The Nature of Provincial Medical Practice in Eighteenth Century England‟, 29-30.
99 Burnby, A Study of the English Apothecary from 1660 to 1760, p. 3.
100 Corfield, Power and the Professions in Britain 1700-1850, p. 24.
101 Reader, Professional Men, p. 120.
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