Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jebb, Richard
JEBB, Sir RICHARD, M.D. (1729–1787), physician, son of Samuel Jebb [q. v.], was born at Stratford, Essex, and there baptised 30 Oct. 1729. He entered at St. Mary Hall, Oxford, in 1747, but being a nonjuror could not graduate in that university, and proceeded to Aberdeen, where he joined Marischal College and graduated M.D. 23 Sept. 1751. He took rooms in Parliament Street, London, and was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians, 24 March 1755. He was physician to the Westminster Hospital from 1754 to 1762, when (7 May) he was elected physician to St. George's Hospital. He went to Italy to attend the Duke of Gloucester, and became a favourite of George III, who granted him a crown lease of 385 acres of Enfield Chase. He built a small house upon it, enclosed it with a fence, and kept deer. In 1771 he was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians, and in 1774 he delivered the Harveian oration, and was censor in 1772, 1776, and 1781. He was created a baronet on 4 Sept. 1778, and was F.R.S. and F.S.A. In 1768 he had already been obliged by private practice to resign his hospital appointment, and in the three years 1779–81 his fees amounted to twenty thousand guineas. In 1780 he was appointed physician to the Prince of Wales, and in 1786 to the king. He was fond of conviviality and of music. Wilkes and Churchill the poet were his friends, and he paid for the education of Churchill's son. Before he attained much practice he made no unworthy efforts to become prominent, and when his practice was large his patients sometimes complained that his manner was not sufficiently ceremonious. His professional reputation was high, and some disparaging remarks of John Coakley Lettsom [q. v.], who knew him, are obviously the result of inability to appreciate his abilities. In June 1787, while attending two of the princesses, he was attacked by fever. He was attended by Dr. Warren [q. v.] and Dr. H. R. Reynolds [q. v.], but died at 2 a.m. on 4 July 1787 at his house in Great George Street, Westminster. He was tall and thin, as may be seen in his portrait by Zoffany, which hangs in the reading-room of the College of Physicians of London. He was buried in the west cloister of Westminster Abbey.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 291; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Gent. Mag. vol. lvii.]