DR. Joseph Fenn Sleigh to James Barry

Abstract

Dr. Joseph Fenn Sleigh (1733-70), Quaker and art connoisseur, practised as a physician in Cork. He had attended the Quaker school at Ballitore soon after Edmund Burke was a pupil there and later studied medicine in Edinburgh where he knew Oliver Goldsmith (1730-74). He was on the staff of the North Infirmary Hospital, Cork from 1759 until his death. Goldsmith wrote an elegy on him (Tim Cadogan and Jeremiah Falvey, A Biographical Dictionary of Cork (Dublin, 2006), p. 311). He was a life-long acquaintance of Burke. Barry, now aged 22, was in Dublin attending classes in figure drawing at the Dublin Society's Art School (The Dublin Society Drawing Schools, Students and Award Winners 1746-1876, compiled by Gitta Willemson (Royal Dublin Society, 2000), pp. 4, 248).