His interest in medicine was piqued when he attended lectures intended to improve his knowledge of the chemical processes of bleaching cloth.

He began as a general practitioner and gained experience caring for workhouse inmates, including while working for a time in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire.

His career also included acting as an expert witness in court cases, as a co-publisher of a medical magazine and as a member of various committees and a hospital reform organisation.

According to some sources, his family had been textile bleachers in the Lowercroft area for well over 200 years prior to his birth,[1] while others say that his father came from Penwortham Priory, near Preston.

a week, never progressed beyond being an ordinary workman of the lowest grade, and according to an obituary in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), enjoyed what he did.

The experience gained during this initial period subsequently enabled him to act as a locum tenens at the Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI), where he mingled with qualified physicians and surgical staff, watched operations and witnessed the administrative workings of a hospital.

The Union provided him with plenty of work and a gross income of 30 guineas a year, out of which he had to fund his own horse for transport and supply all medicines and surgical equipment.

A year later, he sold his practice and returned to Manchester, where he was appointed Honorary Surgeon at St Mary's Hospital for Women and Children in 1868.

[8] In 1876 he was a signatory to the almost-unanimous request from MRI medical staff for the hospital to be rebuilt, either on its current site or elsewhere, due to its inadequacies both in size and design.

[11] He was promoted to Honorary Surgeon in 1879 and in the early 1880s he abandoned his remaining involvement in general practice to concentrate entirely on surgical work.

[14][15] This last appointment at the MRI coincided with the 30th anniversary of his association with the hospital and was marked with a dinner attended by surgical colleagues such as F. A. Southam and Bilton Pollard; it was described by the BMJ as "probably the first of its kind" in the city.

[32][33] Within a month he was heading a public fund-raising appeal for at least £12,000 to give the Corps, which numbered around 700 men, a suitable new drill hall.

[34][e] In addition to his institutional appointments, Whitehead was sometimes called upon to be an expert witness in court cases relating to medicine, examples of which include an action in 1896 against a known quack who claimed specialism in the treatment of hernias,[36] and Thomas vs. Barker (an action for damages against Herbert Atkinson Barker, the bonesetter, in 1911).

He said that these people had traditionally been viewed by the profession, including himself, as "anathema" and "technically unqualified" but that Barker's case had demonstrated that there was good cause to investigate their methods and successes rather than be "blinded by professional prejudices".

[40][f] Another cause saw him play a significant role in the introduction of a bill intended to protect infant life, reflecting his involvement in various charities whose purpose shared a similar goal.

[6] His colleague, William Thorburn, said: Such conditions required him to be a brilliant and most rapid manipulator, and called for an unhesitating courage with the utmost simplicity of technique.

[6]Widely respected for his simple, bold and direct operating technique, Whitehead said that "the greatest drawback under which a surgeon can suffer is knowledge of anatomy – it makes him timid".

Burgess also noted that Whitehead's preference for aseptic surgery was demonstrated at the MRI in 1895 with an unorthodox mastectomy that omitted the use of antiseptic on the wound and thus aroused both interest and misgivings.

There is a story that this latter procedure was devised when he was irritable due to a hangover and declined the choice of surgical instruments offered to him with the words "for God's sake give me a pair of scissors".

In its original version, it was a solution of iodoform, turpentine and the solids of Friar's Balsam, that hardened as a dressing to give anaesthetic and antiseptic benefits for wounds that were situated in potentially contaminated areas of the body.

[8] In its application during his tongue excision procedure, he noted that it enabled the patient "to take food in the ordinary manner almost immediately after the operation";[18] nowadays, it is used for such things as packing jaw and nasal cavities, and on areas of the body where skin has been removed for grafting.

[8] Among Whitehead's patients were Joseph Nuttall, a renowned professional swimmer of the time,[47] and the footballers Di Jones[48] and Charlie Burgess.

[51] Some time in the late 1890s, Whitehead bought 37 acres (15 ha) of land at Flagstaff Hill in Colwyn Bay, North Wales.

[8] He became president of the Colwyn Bay Chess Club[56] and he praised both the people and the environment, as well as defending the town against charges of unsanitary conditions that were raised in the House of Commons in 1907.

[54][57] Whitehead bought at least four other residential properties in Colwyn Bay[6][58] but the grand mansion house that he had planned at The Flagstaff was never constructed and he lived instead in the estate's gatehouse.

The stonework was carved by John Jarvis Millson; the effigy was the work of Moreau, although which of the many sculptors who bore that name is uncertain.