Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Nettleship, Edward
NETTLESHIP, EDWARD (1845–1913), ophthalmic surgeon, was born at Kettering 3 March 1845, the fourth son of Henry John Nettleship, solicitor, of Kettering, by his wife, Isabella Ann, daughter of the Rev. James Hogg, vicar of Geddington, near Kettering. Of their six sons four became distinguished in their professions; Henry [q.v.], John Trivett [q.v.], Edward, and Richard Lewis [q.v.]. Edward received his early education at Kettering grammar school. His boyish enthusiasm for natural history and his love of outdoor pursuits led to the decision that he should become a farmer. On leaving school he devoted several years to the study of agriculture and veterinary science. In 1867 he qualified as member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and shortly afterwards was appointed professor of veterinary surgery at the Agricultural College, Cirencester. In 1868 he obtained the membership, and in 1870 the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
About the year 1867 Nettleship entered as a student at Moorfields Eye Hospital and began the study of ophthalmology, the branch of medicine in which he afterwards became an acknowledged leader. In 1871 he was appointed curator of the hospital museum and library and soon afterwards he published in the Ophthalmic Hospital Reports the first of a long series of papers, clinical and pathological, on ophthalmic subjects. In 1873, at the request of the Local Government Board, he inspected the metropolitan poor-law schools in reference to the prevalence of ophthalmia. His report led to some much-needed reforms in the care of pauper children.
During his professional career Nettleship held a number of public appointments. The most important were those of ophthalmic surgeon to St. Thomas's Hospital and surgeon to the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital. At these schools his reputation as a clinical investigator, surgeon, and teacher became firmly and widely established. In addition to his hospital duties he had a large private practice, yet he found time and opportunity for the preparation of many papers of lasting value, which he read before medical societies. He was one of the founders, in 1880, of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom, of which he became the first surgical secretary and, in 1895, president.
In 1902 Nettleship retired from practice and devoted the remainder of his life to research. For many years he had been interested in the study of heredity in disease, especially in relation to disorders of the eye and vision. He now accomplished a remarkable amount of excellent work, his pedigrees of disease being characterized by a high degree of orderly observation and meticulous accuracy. The importance of his researches on heredity were recognized by his election to the fellowship of the Royal Society in 1912, and in 1922 by the republication, delayed by the War, of much of his work in a memorial volume of the Treasury of Human Inheritance (Eugenics Laboratory Memoirs XXI, Anomalies and Diseases of the Eye, 1922).
In 1902 the Nettleship medal ‘for the encouragement of scientific ophthalmic work’ was founded by Nettleship's colleagues and former students, as a tribute to his character and to his outstanding qualities as a scientific exponent of ophthalmology. In 1909 the medal was awarded to Nettleship himself in recognition of his researches on heredity in diseases of the eye.
Nettleship died at Hindhead, Surrey, 30 October 1913. He had married in 1869 Elizabeth Endacott, daughter of Richard Whiteway, gentleman farmer, of Compton, Devon. There were no children of the marriage.
[Biographical memoir in the Treasury of Human Inheritance, 1922; personal knowledge.]