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Bovell, James
James Bovell, physician, educator, clergyman (b in Barbados 28 Oct 1817; d at Charlestown, Nevis, W Indies 15 Jan 1880). Bovell studied medicine at London, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin. Licensed in 1839 by the Royal College of Physicians, London, he immigrated to Toronto in 1848, becoming prominent as a physician-educator, devout high churchman and synodical secretary.
In November 1850, with Edward Hodder and other prominent physicians, all ardent churchmen, Bovell offered to John STRACHAN, Bishop of Toronto, the recently organized Upper Canada College of Medicine as the medical faculty of the new Trinity College. Bovell was dean of Trinity College's medical school from 1851 until 1856, when the school dissolved following disputes with Bishop Strachan and his council. Bovell then lectured in physiology at the Toronto School of Medicine and (after 1864) at Upper Canada Veterinary College.
He co-founded a professional journal, published medical articles and religious works, denounced inebriety and cholera-promoting filth. Bovell practised microscopy at Trinity College School with warden William Arthur Johnson and William OSLER, head prefect in 1866, whom he profoundly influenced. Returning to the West Indies in 1871, Bovell was ordained (1871) and served various Anglican parishes before a stroke incapacitated him.
