William Heberden the elder (1710-1801) and William Heberden the younger (1767-1845), physicians

William Heberden the elder was born in 1710 in Southwark, London. He received a BA from St John's College, Cambridge in 1728 and in 1731 he was elected a fellow of his college. He went on to study medicine and was awarded his MD in 1738. He was elected fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1746.

He moved from Cambridge to London in 1748, where he practised as physician and was active at the RCP. In 1749 he was elected a fellow of Royal Society and delivered the Goulstonian lectures on the history, nature and cure of poisons in the same year. He contributed to the first three volumes of Medical Transactions (1768–1785), including his paper on angina pectoris, the first ever description of this illness.

He was married twice, to Elizabeth Martin (1852-1854), who died after labour, and from 1760 to Mary Wollaston. He did not publish his major work, Commentaries on the History and Cure of Diseases in his lifetime (it was done by his son William in 1802). He died in 1801 in his house on Pall Mall, London.

William Heberden the younger was born to William and Mary Heberden in 1767 in London, one of the two surving children of the couple. He got his BA from St John's College in Cambridge and became the fellow of his college in the same year. He got MA in 1791 and was incorporated on this degree at Oxford where he obtained his MD 1795. He studied at St George's Hospital and was a physician there 1793-1803. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1791 and of the Royal College of Physicians in 1796.

In 195 he was appointed physician-extraordinary to the queen and in 1809 also to the king. He married Elizabeth Catherine Miller in 1795 who died in 1812 leaving him with nine children, which made Heberden move to a village near Windsor. He moved back to London in 1826, retired from his practice and died in 1845.