Although Leamington in ancient times had its vicissitudes, there is little of interest historically concerning it until about the year 1784, when Abbotts made the discovery of a second mineral spring, which caused attention to be focussed on the medicinal properties of the Leamington waters. It is doubtless to the discovery of these springs, and others, may be traced the fact that the town in the first years of the nineteenth century began to be a place of importance and fashion. Long before then Camden, Speed, and Dugdale had mentioned prominently the Leamington Waters; and Fuller in 1662, referring to the same subject, quaintly observes, “At Leamington, two miles from Warwick, there issue out, within a stride, [out] of the womb of the earth, two twin springs, as different in taste and operation as Jacob and Esau in disposition; the one salt and the other fresh. This the meanest countryman does plainly see by their effects; while it would puzzle a consultation of physicians to assign the cause thereof.”
Notwithstanding Fuller’s opinion, medical writers soon began to publish speculations concerning mineral waters, and upon these very springs in particular. The earliest pamphleteer upon record was Dr. Guidot in 1689, and he was succeeded by many others, including Doctors Allen, Short, Johnson, Kerr, Kirwan, Middleton, and Loudon. It was Dr. Allen who first settled in the place, and Mr. William Abbotts, who, in 1786, sunk the second well and erected and opened the first baths in June of the same year. This well was almost in the centre of the old village. The third spring or the Road Well, is situated on the high road from Warwick to Daventry and London, and was discovered in 1790.
Leamington was much patronised by those who either were afflicted by real or fancied ailments, which the waters might be hoped to cure, and the efforts of Dr. Abbotts did much to popularise the place. In his endeavour to spread abroad the fame of the place, he was ably seconded by his friend Benjamin Satchwell, the village poet and shoemaker, who had had the good fortune, in 1784, to discover the well on a piece of land in Bath Street.
Referring to the increased importance, size, and prosperity of the town, Satchwell wrote:—
If Muster Abbotts had not done,
His baths of laud and praise;
It must have been poor Leamington,
Now, as in former days.
These two men, no doubt, had much to do with the initial stages of the town’s prosperity, and on the tomb of Satchwell may be traced, but with difficulty, as the inscription is greatly obliterated:—
Hail the unassuming tomb,
Of him who told where health and beauty bloomed;
Of him whose lengthened life improving ran—