Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Chamberlen, Hugh (1664-1728)
CHAMBERLEN, HUGH, the younger, (1664–1728), physician, eldest son of Hugh Chamberlen the elder [q. v.], was born in 1664. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and took the degree of M.A. in 1683 per literas regias. After studying medicine at Leyden he graduated M.D. at Cambridge in 1689. In 1694 he was admitted a fellow of the College of Physicians, and was censor in 1707, 1719, 1721. Chamberlen practised midwifery like his ancestors, and in that and other departments of physic had many fashionable patients. Swift writes to Stella (Letters, ed. 1768, iv. 81) that he had dined with Chamberlen. He attended Atterbury in the Tower. He married thrice, and had three daughters, but seems to have preferred the society of the old Duchess of Buckingham and Normanby to that of his wife. His own house was in King Street, Covent Garden, but he spent much time and at last died in the Buckingham House which occupied part of the site of the present Buckingham Palace. His only published work is a turgid Latin epithalamium, written on the marriage of Princess Anne in 1683. A monument to Chamberlen, put up by the son of the Duchess of Buckingham and Normanby, disfigures the north choir aisle of Westminster Abbey. His life-size effigy reclines in doctoral robes on the lid of a sarcophagus surrounded by emblematic sculptures, while a long Latin epitaph by Atterbury praises his family, his life, his descendants, and his patron. The safe delivery of the Duchess of Buckingham and Normanby, which is mentioned by Atterbury as one of the reasons for the monument, is also commemorated with gratitude in the duke's 'Essay of Vulgar Errors;' while the 'Psylas of Garth's Dispensary' (6th edit. London, 1706, p. 91) is a third literary memorial of this fashionable physician. Chamberlen died after a long illness on 17 June 1728. His library was sold in 1734 after the death of his widow, and there is a copy of the catalogue in the British Museum.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys., 1878,i. 604; Aveling's The Chamberlens, London, 1882; Duke of Buckingham's Works, London, 1723, ii. 268.]