The Professor of Physic at Gresham College, London, gives free educational lectures to the general public, typically on medicine, health and related sciences. The college was founded for this purpose in 1597, when it created seven professorships; this was later increased to ten. Physic (the common term for medicine in this period) is one of the original professorships as set out by the will of Sir Thomas Gresham in 1575. The Professor of Physic is appointed in partnership with the Worshipful Company of Mercers.
Past Professors of Physic have included leading figures in medicine, public health, surgery and clinical science. Additionally, other eminent medical scientists and physicians were Gresham Professors of other disciplines, like Sir William Petty, one of the founders of demography, who served as Professor of Music from 1651.
List of Gresham Professors of Physic
Name Started1 Matthew Gwinne March 1596 / 72 Peter Mounsell Sept 1607 3 Thomas Winston 25 Oct 1615 4 Paul de Laune 13 June 1643 5 Thomas Winston 20 August 1652 6 Jonathan Goddard FRS 7 Nov 1655 7 John Mapletoft FRS 27 March 1675 8 Henry Paman FRS 21 June 1679 9 Edward Stillingfleet FRS 21 June 1689 10 John Woodward FRS 13 Jan 1692-1703 11 Henry Pemberton FRS 24 May 1728 12 Thomas Healde FRS 27 March 1771 13 Christopher Stanger 25 March 1789 14 Henry Herbert Southey FRS 24 Oct 1834 15 Henry Powell 27 July 1865 16 Edmund Symes-Thompson 5 July 1867 17 Fleming Mant Sandwith 14 March 1907 18 Sir Robert Armstrong-Jones 24 May 1918 19 Sir George Newman 26 July 1929 20 James Alison Glover 12 Oct 1934 21 Vincent Sutherland Hodson 13 April 1937 1939–45 Lectures in abeyance 22 Hamilton Hartridge FRS 6 June 1946 23 John Leonard d’Silva 1955 24 Arthur John Buller 1962 25 Invited lectures: H Harris and D V Davies 1964-65 26 J P Quilliam 1965 27 H C Stewart 1968 28 David Slome 1970-84? 29 John Daniel Griffiths 1986 30 Sir Kenneth L Stuart 1988 31 Francis Cox1 Sept 1992 32 Susan Greenfield, Baroness Greenfield1 Sept 199533 Hilary Rose and Steven Rose1 Sept 199934 Keith Kendrick 1 Sept 200235 Christopher Dye FRS 1 Sept 200636 William Ayliffe 1 Sept 200937 Martin Elliott 1 Sept 201438 Sir Chris Whitty 201839Robin May202240Matthew Higgins2026
References Gresham College old website, Internet Archive List of professors Robin May appointed in 2022
Notes
Further reading