- Henry Acland
Sir Henry Wentworth Acland, 1st Baronet KCB was born on
23 August 1815 inKillerton ,Exeter ,Devon ,England . He was the fourth son of Sir Thomas Acland and Lydia Elizabeth Hoare. He died on16 October 1900 in Broad Street,London , England.The fourth son of
Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet , Henry Acland was an Englishphysician and educator. Educated at Harrow and atChrist Church, Oxford , he was elected fellow ofAll Souls College, Oxford , in 1840, and then studied medicine inLondon andEdinburgh . Returning to Oxford, he was appointed Lee's reader in anatomy at Christ Church in 1845, and in 1851 Radcliffe librarian and physician to theRadcliffe Infirmary .Seven years later he became
Regius professor of medicine , a post which he retained till 1894. He was also a curator of the university galleries and of theBodleian Library , and from 1858 to 1887 he represented his university on theGeneral Medical Council , of which he served as president from 1874 to 1887. He was created abaronet in 1890, and ten years later he died at his house inBroad Street, Oxford (number 40 on the site of the newBodleian Library building). He was made a Fellow of theRoyal Society in 1847. [ [http://royalsociety.org/downloaddoc.asp?id=4274 List of Fellows of the Royal Society, A - J] ]Acland took a leading part in the revival of the Oxford medical school and in introducing the study of natural science into the university. As Lee's reader he began to form a collection of anatomical and physiological preparations on the plan of
John Hunter , and the establishment of theOxford University Museum , opened in 1861, as a centre for the encouragement of the study of science, especially in relation to medicine, was largely due to his efforts. "To Henry Acland," said his lifelong friend,John Ruskin , "physiology was an entrusted gospel of which he was the solitary preacher to the heathen," but on the other hand his thorough classical training preserved science at Oxford from too abrupt a severance from the humanities. In conjunction with Dean Liddell, he revolutionized the study of art and archaeology, so that the cultivation of these subjects, for which, as Ruskin declared, no one at Oxford cared before that time, began to flourish in the university.Acland was also interested in questions of public health. He served on the royal commission on sanitary laws in England and Wales in 1869, and published a study of the outbreak of
cholera at Oxford in 1854, together with various pamphlets on sanitary matters. His memoir on the topography of theTroad , with panoramic plan (1839), was among the fruits of acruise which he made in theMediterranean for the sake of his health.His daughter subsequently lived in Park Town and was an early pioneer of colour photography. Some of her photographs are in collection of the
Museum of the History of Science in Broad Street, opposite the family home.His son, Colonel
Alfred Dyke Acland married Hon. Beatrice Danvers Smith, daughter of Rt. Hon. W. H. Smith of the Newsagents dynasty on 30 July 1885 and gained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in 1910 in the service of the Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry (Territorial Army).The old
Acland Hospital on theBanbury Road inOxford (now part ofKeble College ) was founded in memory of Acland's wife, Sarah.Marriage and children
He married Sarah Cotton, daughter of William Cotton and Sarah Lane, on
14 July 1846 . They had seven sons and a daughter:
*Admiral Sir William Alison Dyke Acland, 2nd Baronet (1847-1924)
* Sarah Angelina Acland (1849-1930)
* Henry Dyke Acland (1850-1936)
* Theodore Dyke Acland (1851-1931), the father ofTheodore Acland (1890-1960)
* Herbert Dyke Acland (1855-1877)
*Sir Reginald Brodie Dyke Acland (1856-1924)
* Francis Edward Dyke Acland (1857-1943)
*Alfred Dyke Acland (1858-1937)References
*1911
* [http://www.headington.org.uk/oxon/people_lists/oxford_1852_gardners/o_p.htm Gardner's 1852 Directory for the City of Oxford] entryExternal links
*NRA|P87
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