William H. Bennett (surgeon)

Sir William Henry Bennett in 1930

Sir William Henry Bennett, KCVO, FRCS (1852 – 24 December 1931)[1] was a British surgeon.

Bennett was a Wiltshireman, the son of William Francis Bennett, of Chilmark.

He held several administrative posts in medical establishments, including at St George's Hospital, where he was a senior surgeon.

Bennett introduced London doctors to massage as a treatment modality for new fractures in 1898[2] and he established a department of massage at St. George´s. However, his most important contribution to medical science was a paper in which he introduced the surgical procedure of posterior rhizotomy for the relief of spasmodic pain in a lower extremity.[3]

He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) in July 1901,[4] for services rendered to sick and wounded returning from the Boer War, South Africa, 1900–02, for which he was publicly thanked by Lord Roberts.[1]

The following year he was on 8 May 1902 appointed a Knight of Grace of the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem in England (KStJ).[5]

During the War 1914–1919 he relinquished all private affairs to take up work with British Red Cross and the Order of St John[1]

Bennett married first, in 1882, Isabel Dickinson (died 1911), daughter of Thomas Dickinson.[6] After his first wife´s death, he married second, in 1914, Gladys Florence Stewart Hartigan, daughter of Rev. Allen S. Hartigan[1]

Notes and references

  1. 1 2 3 4 BENNETT, Sir William Henry’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007
  2. Bennett, William H. (1909), Lectures on the use of massage and early movements in recent freactures. New York, Bombay & Calcutta: Longmans, Green & Co., fourth edition.
  3. Bennett. On spasmodic pain.
  4. The London Gazette: no. 27336. p. 4837. 23 July 1901.
  5. The London Gazette: no. 27432. p. 3087. 9 May 1902.
  6. "Sitter: Lady Bennett [possibly Isabel née Lloyd Dickinson d 1911]". Lafayette Negative Archive.

External links

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