James Risdon Bennett

James Risdon Bennett
Born (1809-09-29)29 September 1809
Romsey
Died 24 December 1891(1891-12-24) (aged 82)
Cavendish Square, London
Nationality English
Occupation physician

Sir James Risdon Bennett (1809–1891) was an English physician.

Life

The eldest son of the Rev. James Bennett, a nonconformist minister, he was born at Romsey on 29 September 1809. He received his education at Rotherham College, Yorkshire, of which his father became principal; and at the age of fifteen was apprenticed to Thomas Waterhouse of Sheffield. In 1830 he went to Paris, and then to Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. in 1833.[1]

In the autumn of 1833 Bennett accompanied Lord Beverley to Rome, and spent two or three summers in his company and that of Lord Aberdeen. On his return to England in 1837 he became physician to the Aldersgate Street dispensary, and lectured on medicine at the Charing Cross Hospital medical school, and also at Grainger's school of medicine.[1]

In 1843 Bennett was appointed assistant physician to St. Thomas's Hospital, and in 1849 full physician. On the foundation of the City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest in 1848 he was appointed physician there; and from 1843 to its dissolution in 1867 acted as secretary to the Sydenham Society.[1] In 1850 he was President of the Medical Society of London.[2] In 1875 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.[1]

Settling in Finsbury Square on his marriage in 1841, he had success as a consultant, especially in connection with chest diseases, an early adopter of the stethoscope. In 1876 he was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians, and was knighted. He then moved to Cavendish Square, where he died on 14 December 1891.[1]

Works

Bennett's published works included:[1]

Family

Bennett married, in June 1841, Ellen Selfe, daughter of the Rev. Henry Page of Rose Hill, Worcester, by whom he had nine children, of whom six survived.[1]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7  Sidney Lee, ed. (1901). "Bennett, James Risdon". Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement 1. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. "November 30, 1850". London Journal of Medicine (London: Taylor, Walton, & Maberly). vol. III: 92. 1851.
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Sidney Lee, ed. (1901). "Bennett, James Risdon". Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement 1. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 

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