Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Bennett, James Risdon
BENNETT, Sir James Risdon, M.D., F.R.S., Ex-President of the Royal College of Physicians, eldest son of the Rev. James Bennett, D.D. by Sarah, daughter of Mr. John Comley, of Romsey, Hampshire, was born at Romsey, in 1809. He was educated by private tuition, and received his professional education in Paris and Edinburgh, at which latter university he took his degree of M.D. in 1833. After travelling for two years on the Continent, he settled in London, and lectured at the Charing Cross Hospital and Grainger's School in the Borough. He was elected, in 1843, Assistant-Physician to St. Thomas's Hospital, and on becoming full Physician, lectured there for many years on the "Practice of Medicine." He was one of the Founders and Secretary of the first Sydenham Society for the Publication of Medical Works. After filling the offices of Censor, Lumleian and Croonian Lecturer, and Representative of the College of Physicians in the General Medical Council, he was elected President of the College in 1876, and annually re-elected up to 1880. In the same year he had been elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Sir Risdon Bennett is Consulting Physician to the Victoria Park Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, Hon. Physician and Governor of St. Thomas's Hospital, and Fellow of various medical and scientific societies. He has published a translation from the German of Kramer on "Diseases of the Ear;" "An Essay on Acute Hydrocephalus," which gained the Fothergillian Gold Medal; Lumleian lectures on Cancerous and other Intra-Thoracic Growths." He has also contributed numerous papers to the Transactions of the Pathological Society and various medical journals. Sir Risdon Bennett was one of the Commissioners of the Paris Universal Exhibition for 1878. In that year he received from the University of Edinburgh the honorary degree of LL.D. In 1881 he received from Her Majesty the honour of knighthood, and was elected Chairman of the Executive Committee of the International Medical Congress. Sir Risdon is at present Member of the Council, and Vice-President of the Royal Society. He married, in 1841, Miss Ellen Selfe Page, daughter of the Rev. Henry Page, M.A., of Rose Hill. Worcester.