Was the fourth child of the Rev. Peter Bellinger Brodie, M.A., of Worcester College, Oxford, Rector of Winterslow, Wilts, by Sarah, daughter of Benjamin Collins, Banker and printer, of Milford, near Salisbury. The Brodies were originally a Morayshire clan, and the family was fortunate in relations.

Born at Prestwich, Lancashire, and served his apprenticeship with John Goodman, of Salford, with his uncle, James Ogden, one of the leading medical men in Salford, and with his uncle's successor, William B Lumb. Young Fletcher took a keen interest from the first in science, especially in chemistry a

Born at Sible Hedingham, a small village on the River Colne in the heart of Essex, on September 22nd, 1805, the first son of John and Hannah Hilton. His parents were in humble circumstances when he was born, but his father afterwards made money in the straw-plaiting industry, became the owner of som

Born on July 3rd, 1812, the son of William N. W. Hewett, of Bilham House, near Doncaster, by his second wife. His father was a country gentleman whose fortune suffered from his love of horse-racing. Prescott Hewett received a good education and passed some years in Paris, where he acquired a perfect

Born in Mount Street, Lambeth, where his father and grandfather had carried on a successful practice. The house was at the junction of the Westminster Bridge Road with Kennington Lane. It had a large garden, which Forster tended as a boy, and thus gained his lifelong love for flowers and ferns. He w

Born in Liverpool, the son of a local medical man. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he was Junior Demonstrator in Pathology; after graduating he became Demonstrator of Anatomy to Professor Melville Paterson at University College, Dundee. He pursued his medical studies in Berlin

Born in the United States of America in 1841, the only son of John Hawley Cooke and Jane, daughter of the Hon Richard Hawley. His parents took him to Paris as an infant, where he had no regular education. At the age of 13 Cooke was left to make a private arrangement with a schoolmaster. Starting as

Born at Sudbury, in Suffolk, on July 18th, 1820, the third son of William Wood Humphry, barrister-at-law and distributor of stamps for the county of Suffolk. One of his brothers became a barrister; the second, the Rev W G Humphry, was for many years Vicar of St Martin's-in-the-Fields. G M Humphry wa

One of the ten children of the Rev. Edward Hawkins, grandson of Sir Caesar Hawkins, Bart. (1711-1786), Surgeon to St. George's Hospital and Serjeant-Surgeon to George II and George III, who was descended from Colonel Caesar Hawkins, commanding a regiment of horse for Charles I. Caesar Hawkins was b

Born April 14th, 1815, at 10 The Terrace, Upper Clapton, Middlesex, the only child of John and Mary Birkett. Educated at various private schools; at one the master was a Frenchman, at another a mathematician and astronomer, and at a third a Greek scholar. Birkett thereby gained a wide general knowle

Born in London on March 13th, 1835, the son of Christopher Heath (1802-1876) and Eliza Barclay. His father was the well-known Irvingite who was instrumental in building the beautiful Catholic Apostolic Church in Gordon Square, where he afterwards acted as angel, or minister, of the congregation. Hea

Born in London and was educated chiefly at Verdun, where he gained a mastery of French and an affection for French people and their institutions. He was apprenticed to Edward Stanley (qv), Surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, in 1825. Having become MRCS in 1830, he attended wounded at the Hôtel-Di