William Tindal Robertson
Sir William Tindal Robertson (1825 – 6 October 1889), was an English physician. He represented Brighton in Parliament from 29 November 1886 – 25 October 1889.[1][2][3]
He was the eldest son of Frederick Fowler Robertson of
He obtained a license to practise from the
He established a medical practice in Nottingham in the following year, and in 1855 married Elizabeth Ann, daughter of John Leavers, cotton spinner of The Park, Nottingham.[3] For nearly twenty years he acted as physician to the Nottingham General Hospital. Robertson was largely responsible for making Nottingham a major teaching hospital by introducing the Oxford local examinations.[3]
Robertson was also involved in the public life of Nottingham: he was member of the town council, helped to start the local Literary and Philosophical Society and in the foundation of the
In The Lancet in July, 1867, he publicly commented on the conflict of interest inherent to the practice of arbitration by medical examiners employed by railways to assess and compensate injuries sustained in accidents. To his credit, he had ceased this type of work because of the professional conflict that the compensation scheme created in the medical examiner. This is an early example of professionalism being a natural antidote to the moral hazard created in the principal-agent interactions of independent medical examiners.
His eyesight began to fail, and he became blind from glaucoma in 1873, and in 1874 he was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London. He retired from medicine, moving to Brighton in 1876, where he was elected to the town council and was a justice of the peace for Brighton and Sussex.[2] The chairman of the Brighton Conservative and Constitutional Association, when the sitting member of parliament, David Smith, died in 1886 he was unanimously selected by the local party to contest the vacant seat. He was elected unopposed.[5]
A member of the
In the last weeks of his life he suffered from severe depression, and he killed himself by cutting his throat with a razor at his Kemp Town, Brighton residence in October 1889.[2] He was cremated at Woking, Surrey and his ashes placed in the family vault at Brighton.[3][6]
References
- ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "B" (part 5)
- ^ a b c d e f "Obituary". The Times. 7 October 1889. p. 11.
- ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 18 July 2011.
- ^ Robertson, William Tindal (1853). "On Asiatic cholera".
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(help) - ^ "The Representation of Brighton". Daily News. 30 November 1886.
- ^ "The Late Sir Tindal Robertson". The Times. 11 November 1888. p. 8.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Robertson, William Tindal". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.