Sir Thomas Watson

A carte-de-visite portrait of the British physician Sir Thomas Watson (1792-1882).

Watson was appointed appointed physician to the Middlesex Hospital in 1827. He briefly held the chair of clinical medicine at University College but soon transferred to King’s College, where he was chosen as professor of forensic medicine. In 1846 he was appointed to the more important chair of the principles and practice of medicine. His lectures in that capacity soon established his reputation, and their subsequent publication placed him in the first rank of his profession. By 1848 he had become the acknowledged head of the medical profession in this country. He resigned his chair at King’s College in 1840 and his position at the Middlesex Hospital in 1843. He was appointed Physician Extraordinary to the Queen in 1859, and as such, in conjunction with Sir William Jenner and Sir Henry Holland, he attended the Prince Consort in his last illness. He was created a baronet in 1866 and was appointed Physician in Ordinary to the Queen in 1870.

Photographed by Camille Silvy of London on 29 July 1862.