William Frederick Chambers

Who was William Frederick Chambers?

William Frederick Chambers MD was a British physician.

Chambers was the eldest son of William Chambers, a political servant of the East India Company, and a distinguished oriental scholar, who died in 1793, by his marriage with Charity, daughter of Thomas Fraser, of Balmain, Inverness-shire. Sir Robert Chambers was his uncle.

He was born in India in 1786, came to England in 1793, was educated at Bath grammar school and at Westminster School; from which he was elected to a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA, MA and MD. On leaving Cambridge he studied medicine at St. George's Hospital, the Windmill Street School of Medicine, and in Edinburgh. He was an inceptor candidate of the Royal College of Physicians, London, 22 December 1813, a candidate 30 September 1818, a fellow 30 September 1819, censor 1822 and 1836, consiliarius 1836, 1841, and 1845, and an elect in 1847.

On 20 April 1816 he was elected physician at St. George's Hospital, though the youngest of the candidates, and held the post until 1839; during that period he delivered a course of lectures on practical medicine, a report of which was printed in the Medical Gazette. For some time his private practice did not increase, and in 1820 his receipts were only about £200; however, after that year a change took place, until at last he attained that standing in the profession in which a physician monopolises the greater part of the consulting practice among the upper classes.