Thomas Spencer Wells

After a short time as a pupil of a surgeon in Barnsley (Yorkshire), he studied medicine at Leeds, Trinity College Dublin, St Thomas' Hospital (becoming a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) in 1841 and a Fellow (FRCS) in 1844), and later in Paris, France.

He served as a naval surgeon in Malta, and then established his own ophthalmic surgery practice in London in 1853.

In 1877 was appointed Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology at the Royal College of Surgeons of England (of which he was elected president in 1883, in the same year he was created baronet).

[1] In 1879, his name was given to his invention of an improved pattern of artery forceps, which prevented entanglement of surrounding structures by the handles of the implement when in use.

His Hampstead estate was sold to the London County Council and turned into a park.