Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hingston, Thomas
HINGSTON, THOMAS, M.D. (1799–1837), of Truro, third son of John Hingston, clerk in the custom house, and Margaret his wife, was baptised at St. Ives, Cornwall, on 9 May 1799, and educated in his native town and at Queens' College, Cambridge, where, however, he did not take any degree. His medical studies commenced in the house of a general practitioner, whence in 1821 he removed to Edinburgh. In 1822 he won the medal offered by George IV to Edinburgh University for a Latin ode on the occasion of his visit to Scotland. The original poem is lost, but a translation made by his brother is preserved in ‘The Poems of Francis Hingeston,’ 1857, pp. 129–31. In 1824 he was admitted to the degree of M.D., after publishing an inaugural dissertation, ‘De Morbo Comitiali,’ and in the same year he brought out a new edition of William Harvey's ‘De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis,’ with additions and corrections. Hingston first practised as a physician at Penzance 1828–32, and afterwards removed to Truro. He contributed to the ‘Transactions of the Geological Society of Cornwall’ a dissertation ‘On the use of Iron among the Earlier Nations of Europe,’ iv. 113–34. To vol. iv. of Davies Gilbert's ‘Parochial History of Cornwall’ he furnished ‘A Memoir of William of Worcester,’ and an essay ‘On the Etymology of Cornish Names.’ He died at Falmouth, whither he had removed for the benefit of the sea air, 13 July 1837.
[Polwhele's Reminiscences, 1836, ii. 153; Gent. Mag. September 1837, p. 318; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. p. 242.]