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Royal College of Physicians

RICHARDSON, Sir Benjamin Ward (1828-1896)


IDENTITY STATEMENT

Reference code(s): GB 0113 MS-RICHB

Held at: Royal College of Physicians

Title: RICHARDSON, Sir Benjamin Ward (1828-1896)

Date(s): 1846-1897

Level of description: Collection

Extent: 62 Files

Name of creator(s): Richardson | Sir | Benjamin Ward | 1828-1896 | Knight | physician

CONTEXT

Administrative/Biographical history:

Born, 1828; apprenticed to Henry Hudson, a surgeon at Somerby, c 1838; Anderson's University, Glasgow, 1847 but left before completing his training due to illness; after a period of convalescence he became assistant to Thomas Browne, of Saffron Walden in Essex; assistant to Edward Dudley Hudson, surgeon at Littlebury; partner of Robert Willis of Barnes, Surrey, 1849; physician to the Blenheim Street Dispensary; Lecturer on Forensic Medicine at the Grosvenor Place School of Medicine, 1854; admitted MA and MD by St Andrews University, 1854; Physician to the Royal Infirmary for Diseases of the Chest, and to the Metropolitan, Marylebone, and Margaret Street dispensaries, 1856; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London, 1865; held several posts at the Grosvenor Place school, lecturing on public hygiene and physiology before becoming Dean of the school, -1863; best-known for his research into anaesthetics and for his involvement in public health and the sanitary movement; died, 1896.

CONTENT

Scope and content/abstract:

Correspondence and papers of Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, 1846-1897, including notes taken by Richardson as a medical student from the lectures of Dr J A Easton, Professor of Materia Medica, Andersonian University, Glasgow, Winter Session 1846-1847; papers relating to Richardson's life of Thomas Sopwith, the mining engineer, comprising Sopwith's original diaries, or a transcript of them, with Richardson's explanatory notes inserted; papers and drafts of Richardson's unfinished autobiography published posthumously under the title 'Vita Medica'; lecture notes on human physiology; Richardson's case book, 1852-1861 and unpublished works by Richardson.

ACCESS AND USE

Language/scripts of material: English

System of arrangement:

Unknown

Conditions governing access:

Records are open for consultation.

Conditions governing reproduction:

All requests should be referred to the Archivist.

Finding aids:

Available at the Royal College of Physicians.

ARCHIVAL INFORMATION

Accruals:

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Provenance of the collection is unknown.

ALLIED MATERIALS

DESCRIPTION NOTES

Archivist's note: Imported from the RCP's Adlib catalogue; edited by Sarah Drewery.
Sources: Oxford DNB.

Rules or conventions: Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives, Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions: Aug 2008


INDEX ENTRIES
Subjects
Autobiographies | Prose | Literary forms and genres | Literature
Biographies | Prose | Literary forms and genres | Literature
Human physiology | Physiology
Lectures (teaching method) | Teaching methods
Medical education | Higher science education
Teaching materials

Personal names
Richardson | Sir | Benjamin Ward | 1828-1896 | Knight | physician
Sopwith | Thomas | 1803-1879 | surveyor and civil engineer

Corporate names

Places