John Misaubin

Who was John Misaubin?

John Misaubin was an 18th-century Huguenot French and British physician and "quack."

He was born in Mussidan, in the Dordogne in France. His father was a Protestant clergyman who later preached in the French Church in Spitalfields. He qualified as a medical doctor in Cahors. As a Huguenot, he later left France for London. There, he married Martha Angibaud in 1709. She was the daughter of Charles Angibaud, formerly Louis XIV's apothecary and also a Huguenot who had left France in 1681, shortly before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Angibaud was later master of the Worshipful Company of Apothecaries in 1728. Both Angibaud and Misaubin had premises on St. Martin's Lane.

Misaubin became a naturalized subject of the Crown in 1719. The same year, he passed the three-part examination to become a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians. Dual qualified, in France and Great Britain, he was clearly a highly trained doctor. He became a freemason in 1730, joining the Horn Lodge in the company of several English noblemen.

Misaubin appeared in a number of satirical prints.