Prescott Gardner Hewett

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Sir Prescott Gardner Hewett, Bt FRCS (3 July 1812 – 19 June 1891) was a British surgeon, and the son of a Yorkshire country gentleman.

Hewett lived for some years in early life in Paris, and started on a career as an artist, but abandoned it for surgery. He entered Saint George's Hospital, London (where his half-brother, Dr Cornwallis Hewett, was a physician from 1825 to 1833), becoming demonstrator of anatomy and curator of the museum. He was the pupil and intimate friend of Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, and helped the latter in much of his work.

Eventually he rose to be anatomical lecturer, assistant-surgeon and surgeon to the hospital. In 1876, he was president of the College of Surgeons, and in 1877, he was made serjeant-surgeon extraordinary to Queen Victoria, in 1884 serjeant-surgeon, and in 1883 he was created a baronet.

Hewett was a very good lecturer, but shrank from authorship; his lectures on Surgical Affections of the Head were, however, embodied in his treatise on the subject in Holmes's System of Surgery. As a surgeon, he was always extremely conservative, but hesitated at no operation, no matter how severe, when convinced of its expediency. He was a perfect operator, and one of the most trustworthy of counsellors.

Hewett died in 1891 and is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.