in the University of Edinburgh, where he obtained a gold medal for his thesis on the surgical practice of Paris, illustrated by cases.

[2] His chief interest was in cardiology and his Diseases of the Heart (1856), perhaps the first work to distinguish the characteristic physical signs of mitral stenosis, was accepted as authoritative and went into a second edition.

He married his first wife, Eliza Emma, daughter of John William Smith of Shrewsbury, on 29 April 1847.

She gave birth to their son, Henry William Kennedy Markham, on 26 July 1848 and died on 19 August 1848.

William Markham's second wife was Catherine, daughter of Dr. James Hamilton of Edinburgh and widow of Thomas Segrave.