Sir John Thomas Banks KCB FRCPI (14 October 1816 – 16 July 1908)[1][2] was an Anglo-Irish physician and, between 1880 and 1898, Regius Professor of Physic at Trinity College, Dublin.
[3] Although born in London, Banks lived and worked in Ireland, then part of the United Kingdom: he would during his lifetime have been identified as a member of the Anglo-Irish class.
His elder brother Percival Weldon Banks (d. 1850)[4] later achieved minor notability as a barrister and, using the pseudonym "Morgan Rattler", a writer.
[1] Born directly after the Great War (as the international hostilities of the preceding 22 years were known at the time), he was the second son of Percival Banks (1764–1848) by his marriage to Mary Ramsay.
[1] The mother of John Thomas Banks, born Mary Ramsay, was the daughter of one army captain[1] and the sister of another,[3] reflecting the militarisation of society in Europe during the early years of the nineteenth century.
In 1843 he was appointed a physician at The Richmond, Whitworth and Hardwicke Hospitals in Dublin[5] Eminent colleagues included Dominic Corrigan and Robert Adams.
[2] One source attributes the absence of significant published output from his middle and later years to his "busy social life", pointing out that he was a "noted conversationalist", famous for his "princely hospitality".
[3] One article by Banks that did attract notice was entitled "De lunatico inquirendo", published in the "Irish Journal of Medical Science" in 1868.