RICHARDSON, Sir Benjamin Ward (1828-1896)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0113 MS-RICHB
Held at	: Royal College of Physicians   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/archive-and-historical-library-collections ›
Full title	: RICHARDSON, Sir Benjamin Ward (1828-1896)
Date(s)	: 1846-1897
Level of description	: fonds
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posthumously under the title 'Vita Medica'; lecture notes on human physiology; Richardson's case book, 1852-1861 and unpublished works by Richardson.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 & 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

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Provenance of the collection is unknown.

Allied Materials

Related material:

Publication note:

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