Thomas Wharton Jones

Thomas W. Jones
Born 9 January 1808(1808-01-09)
St. Andrews, Scotland
Died 7 November 1891(1891-11-07) (aged 83)
Ventnor, England
Residence England
Nationality English
Fields Ophthalmologist and physiologist
Institutions University College, London
Royal Institution
Charing Cross Hospital
Alma mater University of Edinburgh
Doctoral advisor William Mackenzie
Doctoral students Thomas Henry Huxley

Thomas Wharton Jones (born St. Andrews, Scotland, 9 January 1808; died Ventnor, England, 7 November 1891)[1] was an eminent ophthalmologist and physiologist of the 19th century.

Contents

Biography

Jones's father was Richard Jones, a native of London. Richard Jones had moved north to St. Andrews and was working with Her Majesty's Customs for Scotland when Thomas Wharton Jones was born in January 1808. Jones grew up in Scotland and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. From 1827 to 1829, he was an assistant to Robert Knox, a lecturer on anatomy at Edinburgh. Around Christmas of 1827, while working for Knox, he purchased a body from William Hare on Knox's behalf, paying £7 10s to Hare. Jones thus became caught up in the scandal surrounding the notorious body-snatchers Burke and Hare, but was cleared by the investigating committee.[2],[3] After this, he went to Glasgow, where he worked with William Mackenzie. Jones contributed the anatomical drawings of sections of the eye that appeared in Mackenzie's classic treatise. [4]

Jones travelled to Cork in 1835, and for a time he engaged in medical practice there, devoting himself chiefly to diseases of the eye and ear. In 1837 he visited the principal universities of the Continent, and settled in London in the following year, where he set up practice as an oculist. In 1847, Jones examined a primitive ophthalmoscope devised by Charles Babbage, but found it of little value.[4] In 1851, Jones was appointed Professor of Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery at University College, London. He occupied this post for 30 years until the beginning of 1881, when medical problems forced him to retire to Ventnor. He stayed in Ventnor until his death in 1891.[3]

Jones was a Lecturer on Physiology at Charing Cross Hospital, Fullerian Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution (1851–55), and Ophthalmic Surgeon to the Hospital.

In 1872, on behalf of the Camden Society, Jones edited an account of the life and death of Bishop Bedell of Kilmore, who was an ancestral kinsman who died in the Irish Rebellion of 1641.

Jones disagreed with the Darwinian theory of evolution, regarding it as a "mere conceit unsanctioned by science," and published a book in 1876 propounding this view.

Awards

Selected publications

Jones also wrote various papers on physiology, published in the Philosophical Transactions and elsewhere.

Society Affiliations

References

This article uses text from the Lancet of November 28, 1891. This publication is now in the public domain.
  1. ^ Patron of the Royal Institution: Fullerian Professorships
  2. ^ Men of the Time: a Dictionary of Contemporaries, rev. and ed. by Thompson Cooper, 9th ed., London: George Routledge and Sons, 1875, entry for Thomas Wharton Jones, pp. 594–595.
  3. ^ a b Obituary, Thomas Wharton Jones, F.R.S., The Lancet 138 (#3561), November 28, 1891, pp. 1256–1258.
  4. ^ a b Babbage the unfortunate, C. R. Keeler, British Journal of Ophthalmology 88 (2004), pp. 730–732, at p. 731.
  1. Men of the Time: a Dictionary of Contemporaries, Thompson Cooper, 10th ed., George Routledge and Sons, 1879, entry for Thomas Wharton Jones, p. 576.
Academic offices
Preceded by
William Withey Gull		 Fullerian Professor of Physiology
1851–1855		 Succeeded by
Thomas Henry Huxley