It is not my intention to discuss here either the history of its
distinguished author or the early history of the English Spa. This task
has been kindly undertaken for me by my friend and colleague, Dr.
Alexander Butler, to whom I take this opportunity to express my grateful
thanks for his very suggestive contribution.
Suffice it for the purpose of this short introduction to state that the
medicinal qualities of the Tuewhit Well were discovered about fifty-five
years prior to the publication of "Spadacrene Anglica," the credit of
the discovery being due to a certain Mr. William Slingsby, not to his
nephew, Sir William Slingsby as has been persistently but erroneously
stated. The Tuewhit Well was first designated "The English Spa" in or
about the year 1596 by Timothy Bright, M.D., sometime rector of both
Methley and Barwick in Elmet, near Leeds, which goes far to support the
well established belief that the waters of the Tuewhit Well were the
first to be used internally for medicinal purposes in England. To-day
the word Spa is, of course, a general term for a health resort
possessing mineral waters, but in the days of Dr. Timothy Bright no such
meaning attached to it; Spa was the celebrated German health resort, and
one can readily conceive with what patriotic enthusiasm Dr.
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