Sir William Lawrence, 1st Baronet (16 July 1783 – 5 July 1867) was an English surgeon who became President of the Royal College of Surgeons of London and Serjeant Surgeon to the Queen.
In his mid-thirties, he published two books of his lectures which contained pre-Darwinian ideas on man's nature and, effectively, on evolution. He was forced to withdraw the second (1819) book after fierce criticism; the Lord Chancellor ruled it blasphemous. Lawrence's transition to respectability occurred gradually, and his surgical career was highly successful. In 1822, Lawrence was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. He was President of the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London in 1831.
Lawrence had a long and successful career as a surgeon. He reached the top of his profession, and just before his death in 1867, the Queen rewarded him with a baronetcy (see Lawrence baronets).
Early life and education Lawrence was born in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, the son of William Lawrence, the town's chief surgeon and physician, and Judith Wood."Surgeon" on memorial in Cirencester parish church; apprenticeship document in Wellcome Library shows he took pupil as "surgeon and apothecary"; memoirs of Cripps grandson show he also practised as physician. His father's side of the family was descended from the Fettiplace family; His great-great-grandfather (also William Lawrence) married Elizabeth Fettiplace, granddaughter of Sir Edmund Fettiplace. His younger brother Charles Lawrence was one of the founding members of the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester.
He was educated at Elmore Court School in Gloucester. At 15, he was apprenticed to, and lived with, John Abernethy (FRS 1796) for five years.
Career
Surgical career Said to be a brilliant scholar, Lawrence was the translator of several anatomical works written in Latin, and was fully conversant with the latest research on the continent. He had good looks and a charming manner, and was a fine lecturer. His quality as a surgeon was never questioned.Brook C. 1945. Battling surgeon. Strickland, Glasgow. p35 Lawrence helped the radical campaigner Thomas Wakley found the Lancet journal, and was prominent at mass meetings for medical reform in 1826.Desmond A. 1989. The politics of evolution: morphology, medicine and reform in radical London. Chicago. Elected to the Council of the RCS in 1828, he became its president in 1846, and again in 1855.Royal Society records He delivered their Hunterian Oration in 1834.
During Lawrence's surgical career, he held the posts of Professor of Anatomy and Surgery, Royal College of Surgeons (1815–1822); Surgeon to the hospitals of Bridewell and Bethlem, and to the London Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye; Demonstrator of Anatomy, then Assistant Surgeon, later Surgeon, St Bartholomew's Hospital (1824–1865). Later in his career, he was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary, later Serjeant Surgeon, to the Queen. His specialty was ophthalmology, although he practiced in and lectured and wrote on all branches of surgery. Pugin and Queen Victoria were among his patients with eye problems.
Shelley and his second wife Mary Shelley consulted him on a variety of ailments from 1814. Mary's novel Frankenstein might have been inspired by the vitalist controversy between Lawrence and Abernethy, and "Lawrence could have guided the couple's reading in the physical sciences".Butler, Marilyn 1994. Frankenstein: 1818 Text. Both Samuel Coleridge and John Keats were also influenced by the vitalist controversy.De Almeida, Romantic Medicine and John Keats, 1991
Despite reaching the height of his profession with the quality of his surgical work and his textbooks,Lawrence, William 1807. Treatise on hernia. Callow, London. Later editions from 1816 entitled Treatise on ruptures. Lawrence, W. 1833. A treatise on the diseases of the eye. Churchill, London. Lawrence is mostly remembered today for a period in his early career which brought him fame and notoriety, and led him to the brink of ruin.
Controversy and Chancery
At the age of 30, in 1813, Lawrence was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1815, he was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Surgery by the College of Surgeons. His lectures started in 1816, and the set was published the same year.Lawrence, William 1816. An introduction to comparative anatomy and physiology, being the two introductory lectures delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons on the 21st and 25th of March 1816. J. Callow, London. The book was immediately attacked by Abernethy and others for materialism, and for undermining the moral welfare of the people. One of the issues between Lawrence and his critics concerned the origin of thoughts and consciousness. For Lawrence, mental processes were a function of the brain. John Abernethy and others thought differently: they explained thoughts as the product of vital acts of an immaterial kind. Abernethy also published his lectures, which contained his support for John Hunter's vitalism, and his objections to Lawrence's materialism.Abernethy J. 1817. Physiological lectures, exhibiting a general view of Mr John Hunter's physiology, and his researches in comparative anatomy; delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons. Longman, London.
In subsequent years Lawrence vigorously contradicted his critics until, in 1819, he published a second book, known by its short title of The Natural history of man.Lawrence, William 1819. Lectures on physiology, zoology and the natural history of man. J. Callow, London. The book caused a storm of disapproval from conservative and clerical quarters for its supposed atheism, and within the medical profession because he advocated a materialist rather than vitalist approach to human life. He was linked by his critics with such other 'revolutionaries' as Thomas Paine and Lord Byron. It was "the first great scientific issue that widely seized the public imagination in Britain, a premonition of the debate over Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, exactly forty years later".Holmes, Richard, 2008. The Age of Wonder. p313
Hostility from the established Church of England was guaranteed. "A vicious review in the Tory Quarterly Review execrated his materialist explanation of man and mind";The review was by the Rev George D'Oyly, a supporter of King's College London, the Anglican answer to UCL.Desmond A. and Moore J.A. 1991. Darwin. Joseph, London. p253Cutmore J. (ed) (2007) "Conservatism and the Quarterly Review: a critical analysis" in Pickering & Chatto, London; Cutmore J.. Contributors to the Quarterly Review 1809–25: a history. Pickering & Chatto, London. . the Lord Chancellor, Lord Eldon, in the Court of Chancery (1822), ruled his lectures blasphemous on the grounds that the book contradicted Holy Scripture (the Bible). This destroyed the book's copyright.According to Charles Brook, Lawrence himself started the court case by applying for an injunction to stop a bookseller pirating his work. Brook 1945. Battling surgeon. Lawrence was also repudiated by his own teacher, John Abernethy, with whom he had already had a controversy about John Hunter's teachings. There were supporters, such as Richard Carlile and Thomas Forster, and "The Monthly Magazine", in which Lawrence was compared to Galileo. However, faced with persecution, perhaps prosecution, and certainly ruin through the loss of surgical patients, Lawrence withdrew the book and resigned from his teaching position. The time had not yet arrived when a science which dealt with man as a species could be conducted without interference from the religious authorities.
It is interesting that the Court of Chancery was acting, here, in its most ancient role, that of a court of conscience. This entailed the moral law applied to prevent peril to the soul of the wrongdoer through mortal sin. The remedy was given to the plaintiff (the Crown, in this case) to look after the wrongdoer's soul; the benefit to the plaintiff was only incidental. This is also the explanation for specific performance, which compels the sinner to put matters right. The whole conception is medieval in origin.
It is difficult to find a present-day parallel. The withholding of copyright, though only an indirect financial penalty, was both an official act and a hostile signal. We do not seem to have a word for this kind of indirect pressure, though suppression of dissent comes closer than censorship. Perhaps the modern 'naming and shaming' comes closest. The importance of respectability, reputation, and public standing was critical in this case, as so often in traditional societies.
Transition to respectability After repudiating his book, Lawrence returned to respectability, but not without regrets. He wrote in 1830 to William Hone, who was acquitted of libel in 1817, explaining his expediency and commending Hone's "much greater courage in these matters".British Library Add MSS 40120, ff. 171-172, quoted in Desmond, Adrian 1989. The politics of evolution: morphology, medicine and reform in radical London. Chicago. p118-21
His last major contribution to the debate was an article on "Life" in the 1819 Rees's CyclopaediaDe Almeida, op. cit. although this volume had in fact appeared in 1812.
He continued to espouse radical ideas, and, led by the famous radical campaigner Thomas Wakley, Lawrence was part of the small group which launched The Lancet, and wrote material for it. Lawrence wrote pungent editorials, and chaired the public meetings in 1826 at the Freemasons' Tavern. He was also co-owner of the Aldersgate Private Medical Academy, with Frederick Tyrrell.
The 1826 meetings Meetings for members of the college were attended by about 1200 people.Brook C. 1945. Battling surgeon. Strickland, Glasgow. p80 [the number present suggests that students and other interested parties were present as well as Members and Fellows] The meetings were called to protest against the way surgeons abused their privileges to set student fees and control appointments.
In his opening speech, Lawrence criticised the by-laws of the College of Surgeons for preventing all but a few teachers in London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen from issuing certificates of attendance at preparatory lectures. He pointed out that Aberdeen and Glasgow had no cadavers for dissection, without which anatomy could not be properly taught.
A proposed change in the regulations of the College of Surgeons would soon cut the ground from under the private summer schools, since diplomas taken in the summer were not to be recognised. "It would appear from the new regulations that sound knowledge was the sort acquired in the winter, when the hospital lecturers delivered their courses, while unsound knowledge was imparted in the summer when only the private schools could provide the instruction". Lawrence in his opening speech, Freemason's Tavern, 1826. Lawrence concluded by protesting against the exclusion of the great provincial teachers from giving recognised certificates.Brook 1945. Battling surgeon p82
Gradual change However, gradually Lawrence conformed more to the style of the College of Surgeons, and was elected to their Council in 1828. This somewhat wounded Wakley, who complained to Lawrence, and made some remarks in the Lancet. But, true to form, Wakley soon saw Lawrence's rise in the college as providing him with an inside track into the workings of the institution he was hoping to reform. For some years, Lawrence hunted with the Lancet and ran with the college. From the inside, Lawrence was able to help forward several of the much-needed reforms espoused by Wakley. The College of Surgeons was at last reformed, to some extent at least, by a new charter in 1843.Brook 1945. Battling surgeon p96; another account, somewhat more partial to Wakley, is given by Sprigge, S. Squire 1899. The life and times of Thomas Wakley. Longmans Green, London. p209–211