WILLIAMS, William Henry
William Henry Williams was born at Dursley, Gloucestershire and baptised on 2 April 1771, son of Richard Williams and his wife Alice. Educated at Beverstone Castle school and studied for a medical profession as a pupil to the eminent surgeon John Padmore Noble (1757-1812), at the Borough Hospital at Bristol Infirmary also studied at St Thomas’s and Guy’s Hospitals, London. In 1795, appointed surgeon to the East Norfolk Militia, then encamped at Deal, Kent, seeing much home service and in 1798 his ‘Williams Field Tourniquet’ was instructed to be employed in every regiment in the King’s service. Admitted fellow-commoner at Caius College, Cambridge on 19 May 1798, aged 27, graduating MB in 1803 and MD 1808. He married on 8 October 1799, Maria Pytches (1778-1857), daughter of John Pytches of Alderton in Suffolk and they settled in Ipswich. In 1810, Williams was placed in charge of the South Military Hospital on the Woodbridge Road, close by Ipswich, which was occupied by soldiers ill from the war at Walcheren in Holland. Elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1817 and in 1824, after filling the office as Physician to the Public Dispensary for twenty-one years, he retired but continued to reside in Ipswich. President and a member of the Ipswich Society of Professional & Amateur Artists from 1832, where he was tutored by Henry Davy. About 1840 he went to Cheriton, Sandgate, Kent for his health and where he died on 8 November 1841. He was the author of several books.