Obituary : Sir William Bowman, bart., F.R.C.S., F.R.S., Ll.D., M.D.

Date:
1892
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Obituary : Sir William Bowman, bart., F.R.C.S., F.R.S., Ll.D., M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    OBITUARY. Sir WILLIAM BOWMAN, Bart., F.R.C.S., F.R.S., LL.D., M.D. It is with the deepest regret that we announce the death of Sir William Bowman, which occurred from pneumonia on March 29th, at his country house Joldwynds, near Dorking. He was born in 1816, at Nantwich, his father being Mr. J. Eddowes Bowman, a banker, #but better known as a botanist. Indeed, from the fact that the son at the commencement of his professional career was a poor man, it would seem not im- probable that the father had been more interested in natural science than in business. No doubt the habit of accurate observation and the keen interest in all scientific subjects, which were characteristics of William Bowman, were largely due to the influence and ex- ample of his father; and if he had a natural tendency towards science, this would have been fostered by his school life at Hazlewood College, Birmingham, where, unlike most schools of the period, much importance was attached to natural science. That a youth with such proclivities and training should be attracted to the medical profession was only natural. William Bowman entered as a pupil at the Birmingham General Hos- pital, and, as was usual in those days, was apprenticed to a well-known surgeon, Mr. Hodgson. Already he began to show evidence of the extraordinary power he always possessed of going thoroughly into every subject with which he was concerned; and while at Birmingham he wrote several mono- graphs in manuscript, one being on the epidemic of influenza in 1833. This and the other papers which he wrote at this period were not published, and we believe, by his desire, will not be included in his works, which are now being collected. A