Thomas Clifford Allbutt

Who was Thomas Clifford Allbutt?

Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt was an English physician and inventor of the clinical thermometer.

Thomas Clifford Allbutt was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, the son of Rev. Thomas Allbutt, Vicar of Dewsbury and his wife Marianne, daughter of Robert Wooler, of Dewsbury. He was educated at St Peter's School, York and Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1859, with a First Class degree in natural sciences in 1860. After studying medicine at St George's Hospital, Hyde Park Corner, London, and taking the Cambridge MB degree in 1861, he went to Paris and attended the clinics of Armand Trousseau, Duchenne de Boulogne author of Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine, Pierre-Antoine-Ernest Bazin and Hardy. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1880, while still practising at Leeds General Infirmary.

After serving as one of the Commissioners for Lunacy in England and Wales from 1889, Allbutt became Regius Professor of Physic at the University of Cambridge in 1892, and was knighted in 1907. He died in Cambridge, England in 1925.

Allbutt was married to Susan, daughter of Thomas England, merchant, of Headingley, Leeds, on 15 September 1869. They had no children.