Diederich Wessel Linden
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Diederich Wessel Linden (fl. 1745–1768; d. 1769) was an early specialist on mining and the medicinal uses of mineral waters in Britain, particularly in Wales.
Diederich Wessel Linden was possibly born in Hemmerde, Westphalia, in the early eighteenth century. He received some schooling and was familiar with the foundations of mining and mineralogy. Although he called himself a medical doctor and physician later in life, there is no evidence that he held any university degree.[1]
Emigration to and early years in Britain
Linden emigrated to Britain in 1742 and initially settled in London where he worked as a physician and pharmaceutical instructor. There, he published Gründliche historische Nachricht vom Theer-Wasser (1745), a German adaptation of a study by George Berkeley (1685–1753). In April 1746, Linden was granted a 14-year patent for the exclusive production of saltpetre based on his own, unique method.[2][3]
Linden's first attempt at naturalisation in 1746 failed as his Bill was presented to the House of Lords, but did not progress any further. He only became a naturalised citizen in 1762 through a Private Act signed by King George III. By late 1747, Linden plunged so much into debt that he was committed to Fleet Prison on 20 January 1747, but already in spring he was released and moved to Holywell, Wales.
Life in Wales and first publications on mineral waters
By summer 1747, Linden had gained leases from two business men in Chester and Holywell, to develop mines at Caerwys and Prestatyn.[3] Anglicising his first name to 'Diederick', it is around this time that he published a pamphlet on mining, A Letter to William Hooson, a Derbyshire Miner (1747), in which he attacked the author, William Hooson, on a personal and professional level. This, in return, drew ire from other contemporaries such as Lewis Morris and Thomas Pennant, who criticised Linden's methodology and conclusions. Undeterred, Linden continued writing about mining and published Three letters on Mining and Smelting (1750), which was also translated into French as Lettres sur la Minéralogie et Métallurgie pratiques (1752).
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The majority of Linden's writing was about the properties and medicinal uses of mineral waters, such as A Treatise on the Origin, Nature, and Virtues of Chalybeat Waters, and Natural Hot Baths (1748) and Treatise on the Three Medicinal Mineral Waters at Llandrindod, in Radnorshire, South Wales (1754).[5] These publications cemented Linden's reputation among his British readership as an expert in this area.[3]
In the 1750s, Peregrine Bertie, third Duke of Ancaster (1714–1778) engaged Linden as an adviser to develop several of the estate's mining interests in the upper Conwy Valley, chiefly in the vicinity of Trefriw.[4] Subsequently, Linden left Holywell first for Llanrwst and later to Brecon where he set up a medical practice and also became a member of the Brecknockshire Agricultural Society, the first of its kind in Wales. Through his membership, he also struck up a friendship with one of its founders, Hywel Harris, Trevecka. In April 1759, four men separately accused Linden of physical assault 'with an intent [of] that most horrid detestable and abominable Crime of amongst Christians not to be named, called Buggery', but all four accusations were dismissed by the Court of Great Sessions.[6]
