Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hume, John Robert
HUME, JOHN ROBERT, M.D. (1781?–1857), physician, born in Renfrewshire in 1781 or 1782, studied medicine at Glasgow in 1795, 1798, and 1799, and at Edinburgh in 1796-7. He entered the medical service of the army, served with distinction in the Peninsula, and during that period was surgeon to Wellesley. The university of St. Andrews conferred on him the degree of M.D. on 12 Jan. 1816, and on 22 Dec. 1819 he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians. Settling in London, he became physician to the Duke of Wellington, and was created D.C.L. at Oxford on 13 June 1834, the duke being then chancellor of the university. He was admitted a fellow of the College of Physicians on 9 July 1836, and on the following 1 Sept. was appointed one of the metropolitan commissioners in lunacy. He subsequently became inspector general of hospitals, and was made C.B. 16 Aug. 1850 (Gent. Mag. 1850, pt. ii. p. 317). He died at his house in Curzon Street, Mayfair, London, on 1 March 1857, aged 75 (ib. 1857, pt. i. p. 500).
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, iii. 212-13; Foster's Alumni Oxon. ii. 713.]