My lineageChapter II / VIII1823–1898

Henry Hind Swann, chemist of the rue de Castiglione

What crosses from one world to another : the pill

Born in Grantham, trained in London, settled in Paris in 1847: Henry Hind Swann founded an English pharmacy on the rue de Castiglione that would carry his name for more than a century.

From Grantham to Paris

Henry Hind Swann was born around 1823 in Grantham, Lincolnshire. He studied medicine in London in the 1840s, then settled in Paris in 1847. Around 1853 he married a Parisian, Judith Félicie Davoust (1830–1903).

The English pill

In 1833–1834, François Mothes and Joseph Dublanc patented the soft gelatin capsule in France. In a country where liquid preparations still dominated, Henry Hind Swann is associated with importing and spreading English pills in Paris. Family tradition puts it in one sentence: he brought the pill to France.

1856, chloroform

On 16 March 1856, Empress Eugénie gave birth to the Prince Imperial after a difficult labour. Chloroform, still new and still risky, was used. Family memory, taken up by the historian François Bourmaud, places Henry Hind Swann in that scene as the chloroform man.

The pharmacy’s addresses

The shop opened around 1850. Galignani’s guide of 1889 lists it as “H. H. Swann, Chemist to the American Embassy, Pharmacien de 1re classe, Established 1850, 12 rue Castiglione”. In 1866, a book by Dr Laborde names it as a national depot for proprietary medicines, with agents in Montpellier, Nice, Lyon, Bordeaux, Nantes and Toulouse.

On 15 April 1879, the British journal The Chemist and Druggist ran an advertisement for “SWANN, 13 RUE CASTIGLIONE”, with prices in British money and terms for shippers and merchants. The house spoke to the English across the Channel.

An American method

In the 1880s, the Répertoire de pharmacie described “M. Swann’s” methods. His errand boys had to take any order, however small, even a single postage stamp. In America, the author notes, chemists sell stamps. To Swann, a plain advertising card was no longer enough to catch the public’s eye.

1898

Henry Hind Swann died in 1898. He left his only son, Alfred, a fortune of about £40,000, nearly a million francs. His grandson Cecil was born the same year. The family left trade; the shop sign carried on under other owners, among them John Jarvis at number 12.