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Thomas Wakley (11 July 1795 – 16 May 1862), was an English surgeon. He became a demagogue and social reformer who campaigned against incompetence, privilege and nepotism. He was the founding editor of ''The Lancet'', and a radical Member of Parliament (MP). == Life == Thomas Wakley was born in Membury, Devon to a prosperous farmer and his wife. His father, Henry Wakley (1750–26 August 1842) inherited property, leased neighbouring land and became a large farmer by the standards of the day, and a government Commissioner on the Enclosure of Waste Land. He was described as a 'just but severe parent' and with his wife had eleven children, eight sons and three daughters. Thomas was the youngest son, and attended the grammar school at Chard, then Taunton Grammar School. In his early teens he was apprenticed to a Taunton apothecary. Young Wakley was a sportsman, and a boxer: he fought bare-fisted in public houses. He then went to London, where he attended anatomy classes at St Thomas's Hospital, and enrolled in the United Hospitals of St. Thomas's Hospital and Guy's.〔 The dominant personality at these two hospitals was Sir Astley Cooper FRS (1768–1841). Wakley qualified as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) in 1817. A surgeon at 22, he set up in practice in Regent Street, and married (1820) Miss Goodchild, whose father was a merchant and a governor of St Thomas' Hospital. They had three sons and a daughter, who died young. His eldest son, Henry Membury Wakley, became a barrister, and sat as deputy Coroner under his father. His youngest son, James Goodchild Wakley and his middle son, Thomas Henry Wakley, became joint editors of ''The Lancet''. All through his career Wakley proved to be a man of aggressive personality, and his experiences in this respect had a sensational beginning. In August 1820 a gang of men (reputedly, the Thistlewood gang) who had some imagined grievance against him burnt down his house and severely wounded him in a murderous assault. The whole affair is obscure. The assault may have been a follow-up to the Cato Street conspiracy, whose supporters believed (wrongly) that the hangman was a surgeon.〔 Wakley was indirectly accused by the insurance company (which had refused his claim), of setting fire to his house himself. He won his case against the company. Wakley's death, on 16 May 1862 in Madeira, was occasioned by pulmonary haemorrhage after a fall there. He had been declining in health for about ten years, and the symptoms are entirely consistent with tuberculosis.〔〔〔 Wakley's three sons survived him, and the ''Lancet'' remained in Wakley hands for two more generations. At the funeral there was attendance from some of those whom he had pilloried: the long-term consequences of his radicalism were eventually appreciated, at least to some extent. Wakley is interred in the catacombs of Kensal Green Cemetery. There is a blue plaque on his house in Bedford Square, London. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Thomas Wakley」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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