Martin attended anatomy under Professor Goodsir during the sessions 1856–57, Summer 1857, 1857–58, Summer 1858, and 1858–59. He was orally examined by Goodsir on 2 May 1859 on the demonstration of the muscles, vessels, and nerves of the upper extremity and osteology, and graduated M.D. in 1860. He also became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and a Licentiate in Dental Surgery.
In April 1862 he received Royal Licence—recorded in the London Gazette and ordered to be entered in Her Majesty’s College of Arms—authorising him to assume the surname Martin in lieu of King. At that time he was styled “of Cambridge House, Portsmouth,” confirming his residence in one of Old Portsmouth’s most historically distinguished properties.
He subsequently emerged as a surgeon-dentist in Portsmouth, was involved in discussions concerning honorary dental service at the Portsmouth, Portsea and Gosport Hospital in 1862, and in 1871 was admitted a member of the Odontological Society of Great Britain. Professional registers throughout the later nineteenth century continue to list him at Cambridge House.
He died in December 1924, with probate granted in 1925.
King, John H. C. E. (1841-1924) Graduated Class of 1860
John Henry Charles Erridge Martin was born at Portsmouth in 1841. His early life was rooted in the older fabric of the port town, and in adulthood he would be repeatedly associated with Cambridge House, High Street West—one of the most historically significant surviving domestic buildings in Old Portsmouth, long linked with prominent civic and professional residents. His later designation “of Cambridge House” therefore signals not merely an address but a social placement within Portsmouth’s older mercantile and professional quarter.
He entered the University of Edinburgh and attended anatomy under Professor John Goodsir during the sessions 1856–57, Summer 1857, 1857–58, Summer 1858, and 1858–59. This unusually sustained attendance—extending across both winter sessions and summer instruction—places him among those students who pursued a thorough anatomical grounding at a time when Edinburgh’s dissecting-room culture was still at its height. On 2 May 1859, Goodsir orally examined him on the demonstration of the muscles, vessels, and nerves of the upper extremity, together with osteological “bone” work—an examination demanding confident topographical anatomy and a practical command of structure. His doctoral thesis, On Gout, indicates an engagement with one of the era’s most discussed chronic disorders, associated in Victorian medicine with heredity, constitutional predisposition, diet, and the social worlds of professional and mercantile life.
Martin graduated M.D. at Edinburgh in 1860. In the same year, he was admitted a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and he subsequently held the Licentiate in Dental Surgery of that College. These qualifications positioned him at the intersection of mid-nineteenth-century surgery and the rapidly professionalising field of dentistry, at a time when “surgeon-dentist” practice still sat uneasily alongside older hierarchies of hospital and medical authority.
In early 1862, he was already a visible professional figure in Portsmouth. Contemporary local reporting shows him styled “Mr Martin, surgeon-dentist, of Portsmouth,” offering his services to the Portsmouth, Portsea, and Gosport Hospital as honorary consulting dental-surgeon. The hospital’s management, however, declined the offer, and the episode prompted pointed commentary on professional jealousy and the contested status of surgeon-dentists within charitable medical institutions. The discussion is revealing: it demonstrates both Martin’s standing and willingness to serve, and the sensitivities surrounding dental surgery’s place within the medical establishment.
A decisive moment in his public identity followed shortly thereafter. On 19 April 1862, a Royal Licence was granted to “John Henry Charles Erridge King, of Cambridge House, Portsmouth … Doctor in Medicine in the University of Edinburgh, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and a Licentiate of Dental Surgery in the same College,” authorising him and his issue to assume and bear the surname “Martin” only, in lieu of “King,” and directing that the concession be recorded in Her Majesty’s College of Arms. This was not a casual alteration but a formal act of state and heraldic record, signalling the legal and social consolidation of the Martin name within Portsmouth’s professional class. It also clarifies the compound form by which he is now identifiable: born Erridge King, he became Erridge Martin by royal authority, while retaining his distinctive middle names.
By 1871, Martin’s professional standing in dentistry is further evidenced by his admission as a member of the Odontological Society of Great Britain, recorded in the Society’s proceedings as “Mr John Henry C. E. Martin, Portsmouth.” Membership of this body, founded in the 1850s and central to the institutional development of British dentistry, places him within the national professional network through which dental surgery sought legitimacy, standards, and recognition.
Martin continued to be associated with Cambridge House, Portsmouth, in later professional registers. He appears in the Dentists Register with Cambridge House as address, and he is also listed in the Medical Register with that same location, his qualifications set out as Licentiate in Dental Surgery, MRCS England (1860), and MD Edinburgh (1860). These official listings are valuable because they demonstrate sustained recognition both as a medically qualified practitioner and as a registered dental surgeon, bridging two professional worlds that were still negotiating their boundaries. A county directory likewise records “Martin, John H. C. E.” at a High Street Portsmouth address, consistent with the Old Portsmouth setting implied by Cambridge House.
Martin’s life extended well beyond the mid-Victorian phase in which he first emerged publicly. Probate records indicate that he died on 8 December 1924, with probate granted in February 1925, the event place being recorded as Jersey. His long lifespan—stretching from the era of Goodsir’s Edinburgh to the interwar period—suggests a career that likely encompassed the full transformation of dentistry from semi-autonomous “surgeon-dentist” practice into a more regulated profession, alongside the continued consolidation of medical credentialing and registration.
Taken together, the surviving record depicts a Portsmouth-born Goodsir student whose career combined Edinburgh anatomical formation, doctoral qualification, English surgical membership, and formal dental licensure. His presence in hospital politics, his membership of the Odontological Society, and his Royal Licence name change recorded at the College of Arms all point to a figure whose professional identity was not merely clinical but also civic and social. Anchored at Cambridge House—an address freighted with Portsmouth history—Martin stands as an unusually well-documented example of a Goodsir student who carried Edinburgh training back into the institutional and charitable life of a major English port, while helping to embody the emergence of dentistry as a respectable medical speciality within Victorian Britain. (University of Edinburgh, Matriculation Rolls, sessions 1856–57; 1857–58; 1858–59; Summer session lists 1857 and 1858; Goodsir oral examination, 2 May 1859; thesis On Gout; University of Edinburgh, Graduation Records, 1860; Hampshire Telegraph, 15 March 1862, page 4; The London Gazette, 29 April 1862, page 2229; Transactions of the Odontological Society of Great Britain, 6 February 1871, page 69; History, Gazetteer & Directory for the County of Hampshire (1878), page 744; The Dentists Register (1900), page 144; The Medical Register (1906), page 1099; “England and Wales, National Index of Wills and Administrations, 1858–1957”, database, FamilySearch (John Henry Charles Erridge Martin; death 8 December 1924; probate 5 February 1925; event place Jersey).
It seemed to me that Dr Martin represents a particularly interesting figure in Portsmouth’s medical history: a native son educated in Edinburgh under one of Britain’s foremost anatomists; a physician whose name change required Royal authority; a practitioner resident at Cambridge House; and an early member of the organised dental profession at a formative period.
It is my profound hope that this information will be useful to the History in Portsmouth and for the benefit of future researchers and scholars.
Finally, I enclose a current listing of my Compilations. These works have been formally transferred to the Heritage Collections of the University of Edinburgh and the Anatomical Museum. Should any of them be of interest, enquiries may be directed to:
Heritage Collections
University of Edinburgh
With full acknowledgement and thanks to
Michael Tracy
Honorary Fellow, Edinburgh Medical School, University of Edinburgh
Chicago, Illinois, USA