Identity area
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Description area
Dates of existence
History
Edward Complin was born in 1773 in London, England. In 1789 when he was 15, he began an apprenticeship with Joseph Adcock, a chemist in Bishopsgate-Within, London. His first apothecary was located at No. 181 Bishopsgate-without, London in 1797. Around 1798 the apothecary was moved to No. 41 Bishopsgate-within, where he continued to practice as a chemist and druggist.
He married Elizabeth Harris on November 3, 1797 in St. Olave’s Church, Hart Street in London. They had five children together: Elizabeth Ester (1798-1864), Edward Thomas (1799-1892; married to Catherine York in 1829), Dorothea Margaret (1800-unknown; married to Miles Beale in 1824), Henrietta Ridout (1801-1842), and Leitita Wedale (1804-unknown). When Complin’s father, William, died in 1808, he left Edward “all books of Herbals and dispensarys (sic)” as well as his largest silver tankard, gold watch and seal.
Complin’s son, Edward Thomas, began to apprentice with him in 1815 before continuing his education at Guy’s Hospital in London and then in Edinburgh. Edward Thomas Complin was admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1820. He began practicing medicine at his father’s apothecary. Miles Beale, who had studied with Edward Thomas Complin at Guy’s Hospital, also became a partner at the apothecary and married one of Edward Complin’s daughters, Dorothea, in 1824.
The apothecary’s most widely-advertised product was Complin Specific, which was marketed as an immediate and safe cure for toothaches, swelled faces and other “complaints in the face.” Advertisements for the remedy ran in the London Times and was sold at various apothecaries throughout London, aside from just the Complin’s. It was also included in a British House of Commons list of medical drugs in 1830.
Edward Complin died in 1833 and was buried in Clapham Cemetery, London. Charles Frederick Complin (1840-1930), Edward Complin’s grandson through Edward Thomas, moved to Canada in 1862. He returned to London, England in 1867 to marry Lucy Skey, then settled in London, Ontario, Canada to farm.