Jenner, Sir William, first baronet (1815-1898), British physician

Purchased from:

Sotheby's, London, February 1930 (acc.52479); July 1931 (acc.57468); April 1932 (acc.65133); November 1933 (acc.67469); July 1931 (acc.67540);

Glendining, London, January 1932 (acc.67614); January 1932 (acc.67619); August 1932 (acc.67699); September 1933 (acc.67769); January 1935 (acc.67947)

Heck, Vienna, August 1932 (acc.65880); Desgranges, Paris, October 1935 (acc.69099); Hodgson's, London, January 1929 (acc.87776) and November 1934 (acc.67402); Stevens, London, July 1923 (acc.89267) and July 1924 (acc.91803); Bloomsbury Book Auctions, London, October 1992 (acc.349050);

Presented by Mrs. Fothergill, September 1927 (acc.67370); presented by Dr. J. H. Stowers, date unknown (acc.A. 158);

Provenance details not recorded (acc.67430); transferred from Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, c.1939 (acc.91800).

William Jenner was born on 30 January 1815 in Chatham, Kent. He qualified as a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in 1835 and began to practice in Marylebone. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1837 and got his MD from University College London in 1844. He soon retired from general practice and devoted himseld to teaching and research. He became a member of Royal College of Physicians in 1848 and in 1849, after publishing the results of his research on typhus and typhoid, he was appointed as professor of pathological anatomy to University College. He was a respected physician and clinical teacher.

In 1862 he was appointed physician-extraordinary to Queen Victoria. He was a fellow of Royal College of Physicians since 1852 and served as its president 1881-1888. He was president of the Epidemiological Society (1866–1868), the Pathological Society of London (1873), and the Clinical Society of London (1875).

In 1858 Jenner married Adela Lucy, daughter of Stephen Adey; they had five sons and a daughter. He was elected Fellow of Royal Society in 1864 and created a baronet in 1868. In March 1878 he threatened to resign if women were admitted to the BMA. Jenner died on 11 December 1898 at Greenwood, Bishop's Waltham, Hampshire, in the house where he had lived since his retirement.

At Wellcome Collection:

PP/BAR/C/13-14, 55-6, 58, 60, 65-6, 71-2, 74, 76-8, 84, 86, 88,168, 325, 944, 1181; PP/BAR/V/9/33; PP/BAR/K/5, 13, 35; RAMC/474/69; RAMC/1139/LP/44/1-3; MS.5873/A/1-97.