T. H. Huxley’s turbulent apprenticeship years: John Charles Cooke and the John Salt scandal

Thomas Henry Huxley’s early medical apprenticeships (between 1838 and 1842) were largely a family affair. They were overseen by one brother-in-law, John Charles Cooke, in Coventry, and another brother-in-law, John Godwin Salt, in London. With both Cooke and Salt teaching at Sydenham College, a private medical school in London, young Huxley too attended this cheap anatomy school in its final year (1841–1842). Huxley developed an interest in botany under Cooke, who was the Professor of Toxicology at the Medico-Botanical Society in 1842. But the brothers-in-law led chaotic lives. Cooke over-indulged in beer and opium, grew corpulent, and eventually failed to make a living teaching. Salt was involved in a previously unexplained scandal, which equally had an impact on the young Huxley. Shortly after Huxley ceased living with John and Eliza Salt (Huxley’s favourite sister), John Salt was jailed for a second time as an insolvent debtor. Huxley was privy to events, sympathetic to the family, and facilitated their flight from the country in 1846.