[1] Having been sent to England at the age of ten in order to gain an education, he was subsequently enrolled into the medical faculty of the University College of London.
A year later he was admitted into membership of the Society of Apothecaries, as well as being awarded a doctors degree in medicine from St. Andrew's in London.
Later he became the personal physician to the crown prince and the future king Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, when the latter was given the governorship of Azerbaijan province, which he held for seven months.
However, on the decision of the prime minister, Amir Kabir, he was replaced by the French physician Ernest Cloquet.
[1] During the trial of the Báb in Tabriz in July 1848, William Cormick and two Iranian physicians were given the task of certifying whether the former could be classified as mentally incompetent.