William Alexander Greenhill
Encyclopedia
William Alexander Greenhill (1 January 1814, Stationers' Hall, London – 19 September 1894, Hastings
) was an English physician, literary editor and sanitary reformer.
under Thomas Arnold
: a favourite pupil of Arnold, he later married Arnold's niece Laura Ward. At Rugby he befriended A. H. Clough, W. C. Lake, A. P. Stanley and C. J. Vaughan; he went on to Trinity College, Oxford
, where he took no arts degree but (studying medicine at the Radcliffe Infirmary
and Paris
) graduated M.B. in 1839 and M.D. in 1840.
Greenhill was appointed physician to the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1839. A "pioneer in the cause of sanitary reform, in the days when sanitary reform was thought a crazy fanaticism", he first wrote on Oxford's public health and mortality for the Ashmolean Society, after a cholera
outbreak in Oxford.
In 1840 he hosted Richard Francis Burton
in his house, encouraging the young student to study the Arabic
by introducing him to the Spanish scholar Don Pascual de Gayangos
. At the time Greenhill, who lived in John Henry Newman's parish, was serving as Newman's churchwarden
; he came to know Pusey
, and other leaders of the Oxford Movement
. Other Oxford academic friends included Charles Page Eden
, William John Copeland
, Charles Marriott
, J. B. Morris and James Bowling Mozley
. A political liberal, Greenhill actively supported William Ewart Gladstone
's election as MP for the university in 1847. Like other university liberals, however, he was later discomfited by Gladstone's direction in the 1880s: he did not vote liberal in 1885 (fearing disestablishment of the Church of England
) or 1886 (objecting to the Home Rule
programme.)
In 1851 Greenhill resigned his Radcliffe Infirmary post and briefly attempted practice as an Oxford physician. However, he moved later that year to Hastings
on grounds of health, though he may also have wanted to escape Oxford's febrile religious controversies. For many years he was physician to the St. Leonards and East Sussex Infirmary. His investigations of mortality rates in Hastings showed the insanitary conditions of artisan housing, despite the town's new popularity as a health resort. In 1857 he founded the Hastings Cottage Improvement Society, and was its secretary from 1857 to 1891: this company bought up and improved insanitary accommodation, as well as building new housing of a better standard. The venture's success prompted Greenhill to promote the idea at the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, and establish a similar organization in London
, the London Labourers' Dwellings Society, of which he was secretary from 1862 to 1876. On Gladstone's recommendation, Greenhill was granted a civil list pension of £60 in 1881. At the time of his death at The Croft, Hastings, aged 81, Greenhill had outlived his wife and his eldest daughter and son, who had each died young; one son and one daughter survived him.
and Latin edition of Theophilus
, a Latin edition of Thomas Sydenham
(1844), an English translation from the Arabic
of Rhazes on small-pox, and a large number of articles in William Smith
's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. In the mid-1840s he published anonymous memoirs of James Stonhouse, Thomas Harrison Burder
and George Cheyne, and edited material on physicians' social duties by Jacob Horst, Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland
, and Thomas Gisbourne
. An enthusiast for Sir Thomas Browne, Greenhill's 1881 edition of Religio Medici
for Macmillan's 'Golden Treasury' series was praised for its scholarship and became the standard edition of the book. His edition of Browne's Hydriotaphia and Garden of Cyrus, unfinished at his death, was completed by his friend E. H. Marshall and published in 1896. He was an editor and frequent contributor to the British Medical Journal
, and contributed to Notes and Queries
and the Dictionary of National Biography
.
Hastings
Hastings is a town and borough in the county of East Sussex on the south coast of England. The town is located east of the county town of Lewes and south east of London, and has an estimated population of 86,900....
) was an English physician, literary editor and sanitary reformer.
Biography
William Alexander Greenhill was the youngest of three sons of George Greenhill, treasurer of the Stationers' Company. He was educated at Rugby SchoolRugby School
Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...
under Thomas Arnold
Thomas Arnold
Dr Thomas Arnold was a British educator and historian. Arnold was an early supporter of the Broad Church Anglican movement...
: a favourite pupil of Arnold, he later married Arnold's niece Laura Ward. At Rugby he befriended A. H. Clough, W. C. Lake, A. P. Stanley and C. J. Vaughan; he went on to Trinity College, Oxford
Trinity College, Oxford
The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope , or Trinity College for short, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It stands on Broad Street, next door to Balliol College and Blackwells bookshop,...
, where he took no arts degree but (studying medicine at the Radcliffe Infirmary
Radcliffe Infirmary
The Radcliffe Infirmary was a hospital in central Oxford, England, located at the southern end of Woodstock Road on the western side, backing onto Walton Street. The Radcliffe Infirmary, named after physician John Radcliffe, opened in 1770 and was Oxford's first hospital...
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
) graduated M.B. in 1839 and M.D. in 1840.
Greenhill was appointed physician to the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1839. A "pioneer in the cause of sanitary reform, in the days when sanitary reform was thought a crazy fanaticism", he first wrote on Oxford's public health and mortality for the Ashmolean Society, after a cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
outbreak in Oxford.
In 1840 he hosted Richard Francis Burton
Richard Francis Burton
Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS was a British geographer, explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia, Africa and the Americas as well as his...
in his house, encouraging the young student to study the Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
by introducing him to the Spanish scholar Don Pascual de Gayangos
Pascual de Gayangos y Arce
Pascual de Gayangos y Arce was a Spanish scholar and orientalist.Born in Seville, he was the son of Brigadier José de Gayangos, intendente of Zacatecas, in New Spain. After completing his primary education in Madrid, at the age of thirteen he was sent to school at Pont-le-Voy near Blois...
. At the time Greenhill, who lived in John Henry Newman's parish, was serving as Newman's churchwarden
Churchwarden
A churchwarden is a lay official in a parish church or congregation of the Anglican Communion, usually working as a part-time volunteer. Holders of these positions are ex officio members of the parish board, usually called a vestry, parish council, parochial church council, or in the case of a...
; he came to know Pusey
Edward Bouverie Pusey
Edward Bouverie Pusey was an English churchman and Regius Professor of Hebrew at Christ Church, Oxford. He was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement.-Early years:...
, and other leaders of the Oxford Movement
Oxford Movement
The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy...
. Other Oxford academic friends included Charles Page Eden
Charles Page Eden
-Life:Born in or near Bristol, he was third son of Thomas Eden, curate of St. George's, Bristol, who died when Charles was an infant, leaving a widow and young family in poverty. Charles was educated at a day school at Bristol, and at the Liverpool Royal Institution School. Afterwards he was...
, William John Copeland
William John Copeland
-Life:He was the son of William Copeland, surgeon, of Chigwell, Essex, where he was born on 1 September 1804. When eleven years old he was admitted at St Paul's School, London , and while there won the English verse prize and the high master's prize for the best Latin essay...
, Charles Marriott
Charles Marriott (Tractarian)
Charles Marriott was an Anglican priest, a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and one of the members of the Oxford Movement. He was responsible for editing more than half of the volumes of their series of translations, the Library of the Fathers....
, J. B. Morris and James Bowling Mozley
James Bowling Mozley
James Bowling Mozley was an English theologian.He was born at Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, the younger brother of Thomas Mozley, and was educated at Oueen Elizabeth's Grammar School and later Oriel College, Oxford.Mozley was elected to a fellowship at Magdalen in 1840...
. A political liberal, Greenhill actively supported William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
's election as MP for the university in 1847. Like other university liberals, however, he was later discomfited by Gladstone's direction in the 1880s: he did not vote liberal in 1885 (fearing disestablishment of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
) or 1886 (objecting to the Home Rule
Home rule
Home rule is the power of a constituent part of a state to exercise such of the state's powers of governance within its own administrative area that have been devolved to it by the central government....
programme.)
In 1851 Greenhill resigned his Radcliffe Infirmary post and briefly attempted practice as an Oxford physician. However, he moved later that year to Hastings
Hastings
Hastings is a town and borough in the county of East Sussex on the south coast of England. The town is located east of the county town of Lewes and south east of London, and has an estimated population of 86,900....
on grounds of health, though he may also have wanted to escape Oxford's febrile religious controversies. For many years he was physician to the St. Leonards and East Sussex Infirmary. His investigations of mortality rates in Hastings showed the insanitary conditions of artisan housing, despite the town's new popularity as a health resort. In 1857 he founded the Hastings Cottage Improvement Society, and was its secretary from 1857 to 1891: this company bought up and improved insanitary accommodation, as well as building new housing of a better standard. The venture's success prompted Greenhill to promote the idea at the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, and establish a similar organization in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, the London Labourers' Dwellings Society, of which he was secretary from 1862 to 1876. On Gladstone's recommendation, Greenhill was granted a civil list pension of £60 in 1881. At the time of his death at The Croft, Hastings, aged 81, Greenhill had outlived his wife and his eldest daughter and son, who had each died young; one son and one daughter survived him.
Literary pursuits
Greenhill's interest in Arabic and Greek medical writers resulted in a GreekGreek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Latin edition of Theophilus
Theophilus Protospatharius
Theophilus Protospatharius , the author of several Greek medical works, which are still extant, and of which it is not quite certain whether some do not belong to Philaretus and Philotheus. Every thing connected with his titles, the events of his life, and the time when he lived, is uncertain...
, a Latin edition of Thomas Sydenham
Thomas Sydenham
Thomas Sydenham was an English physician. He was born at Wynford Eagle in Dorset, where his father was a gentleman of property. His brother was Colonel William Sydenham. Thomas fought for the Parliament throughout the English Civil War, and, at its end, resumed his medical studies at Oxford...
(1844), an English translation from the Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
of Rhazes on small-pox, and a large number of articles in William Smith
William Smith (lexicographer)
Sir William Smith Kt. was a noted English lexicographer.-Early life:Born at Enfield in 1813 of Nonconformist parents, he was originally destined for a theological career, but instead was articled to a solicitor. In his spare time he taught himself classics, and when he entered University College...
's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. In the mid-1840s he published anonymous memoirs of James Stonhouse, Thomas Harrison Burder
Thomas Harrison Burder
-Life:He was born in 1789 at Coventry in England, where his father George Burder was a Congregationalist minister. He originally wanted to become a chemist, but after a while he decided to pursue the medical profession. Burder went to the University of Edinburgh in 1812, and took the degree of M.D....
and George Cheyne, and edited material on physicians' social duties by Jacob Horst, Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland
Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland
Christoph Wilhelm Friedrich Hufeland was a German physician. He is famous as the most eminent practical physician of his time in Germany and as the author of numerous works displaying extensive reading and a cultivated critical faculty.-Biography:Hufeland was born at Langensalza, Thuringia and...
, and Thomas Gisbourne
Thomas Gisbourne
Thomas Gisborne was an Anglican divine, priest and poet. He was a member of the Clapham Sect, who fought for the abolition of the slave trade in England.-Life:...
. An enthusiast for Sir Thomas Browne, Greenhill's 1881 edition of Religio Medici
Religio Medici
Religio Medici is a book by Sir Thomas Browne, which sets out his spiritual testament as well as being an early psychological self-portrait. In its day, the book was a European best-seller and brought its author fame and respect throughout the continent...
for Macmillan's 'Golden Treasury' series was praised for its scholarship and became the standard edition of the book. His edition of Browne's Hydriotaphia and Garden of Cyrus, unfinished at his death, was completed by his friend E. H. Marshall and published in 1896. He was an editor and frequent contributor to the British Medical Journal
British Medical Journal
BMJ is a partially open-access peer-reviewed medical journal. Originally called the British Medical Journal, the title was officially shortened to BMJ in 1988. The journal is published by the BMJ Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Medical Association...
, and contributed to Notes and Queries
Notes and Queries
Notes and Queries is a long-running quarterly scholarly journal that publishes short articles related to "English language and literature, lexicography, history, and scholarly antiquarianism". Its emphasis is on "the factual rather than the speculative"...
and the Dictionary of National Biography
Dictionary of National Biography
The Dictionary of National Biography is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published from 1885...
.
Works
- (ed.) Θεοφιλου ... Περι της τους ἀνθρωπου κατασκευης βιβλια Εʹ. Theophili ... De corporis humani fabrica libri V, Oxford, 1842. Latin and Greek
- (tr. from Latin of Jacob Horst) Prayers for the Medical Profession, London, 1842
- (anon.) Advice to a Medical Student, London, 1843
- (ed.) Thomae Sydenham opera omnia, Sydenham Society, 2 vols, 1844, 1846. English & Latin
- (anon., preface signed 'α') Life of the Rev. Sir James Stonhouse, Bart., with extracts from his tracts and correspondence, Oxford: J. H. Parker, 1844
- Anecdota Syndenhamia: medical notes and observations of Thomas Sydenham, M.D., hitherto unpublished, 1845
- (anon., preface signed 'α') Life of Thomas Harrison Burder, M.D., with extracts from his correspondence, London: Rivingtons, 1845
- (anon.) Life of George Cheyne, M.D., with extracts from his works and correspondence, Oxford: John Henry Parker, 1846
- (ed.) On the relations of the physician to the sick, to the public and to his colleagues, Oxford, 1846. (Extracts from C. W. Hufeland's Enchiridion medicum)
- (tr. from Arabic of Rhazes) A treatise on the small-pox and measles, 1847
- Medical report of the case of Miss H. M.Harriet MartineauHarriet Martineau was an English social theorist and Whig writer, often cited as the first female sociologist....
, 1847 - (ed.) On the duties of physicians, resulting from their profession, Oxford, 1847. (Ch. 12 of Thomas Gisborne's Enquiry into the duties of men in the higher and middle classes of society in Great Britain)
- Monthly (Quarterly, Annual) report on the mortality and public health of Oxford. Ashmolean Society, 1849-50.
- On the establishment and management of cottage-improvement societies: a paper read in the fifth department of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, in the Guildhall, London, June 9, 1862, London, 1862
- Adversaria medico-philologica, London, Savill and Edwards, 13 parts, 1864-1872. Reprinted from the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review.
- ‘A Classified List of the Charitable Institutions of Hastings and St. Leonards, Hastings, 1873
- A form of prayer to be used on the opening of a new house or block of buildings, London, 1873
- On the Mortality and Public Health of Hastings. Paper read at the Health Congress, Hastings, May 1889, Hastings: F. J. Parsons, 1890
- The Contrast: Duty and Pleasure, Right and Wrong, Hastings, 1874; 6th edit., London, 1893
- (ed.) Sir Thomas Browne's Religio medici, Letter to a Friend, &c., and Christian morals, Macmillan, 1881
- (ed. with E. H. Marshall) Sir Thomas Browne's Hydrotaphia and the Garden of Cyrus, Macmillan, 1895