Samuel Cartwright

[2][3] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography erroneously gives his birthplace and date as Northampton in 1789, and, perhaps correctly, states that he was originally an ivory turner.

The ODNB claim that "he came to London at an early age, wholly dependent upon his own exertions for his daily support", should be treated with a pinch of salt.

During a great part of his career he was in the habit of seeing from forty to fifty patients every day, and this for months together, standing constantly from seven o'clock in the morning until the same hour in the evening, and yet in every case doing what he had to do without the slightest appearance of hurry or fatigue.

His pleasing manners, liberal hospitality, and professional fame acquired for him the friendship of nearly all the most distinguished in science, literature, and art of his day.

He continued in practice at Old Burlington Street until 1857, when he retired, and in the following year had an apoplectic seizure which resulted in palsy, under which he laboured for the rest of his life.