William Somerville (physician)

William Somerville FRS FRSE FLS LRCP (1771 – 25 June 1860) was a Scottish physician and inspector of the Army Medical Board.

[1] He was born on 22 April 1771 the eldest son of the Rev Dr Thomas Somerville DD FRSE, minister of Jedburgh and his wife Martha Charters.

In 1801 he and Petrus Johannes Truter led the Truter-Somerville Expedition into Africa, which reached Bechuanaland.

His proposers were Sir Henry Wellwood Moncreiff, Dr James Gregory, and John Playfair.

In 1806 he had an illegitimate son, James Craig Somerville (d.1847), whom he fully supported and helped train as a doctor.