Priestley, Sir Wlliiam Overend I Dr. Priestley l, 1829–1900, physician. Studied at King's College, London; also at other institutions. M.R.C.S. England, 1852; M.D. Univ. of Edinburgh, 1853; F.R.C.P. Edinburgh, 1858; F.R.C.P. London, 1864. Held appointments at various hospitals and universities as lecturer on midwifery, professor of obstetric medicine, consulting physician on obstetrics. Private practice included persons of Royalty. Hon. LL.D. Univ. of Edinburgh, 1884; knighted 1893. Elected M.P. for Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews, 1896. Published medical works.

      Priestley's wife (EIiza Chambers) was the niece of Mrs. Wills. It was probably through the Willses that the Priestleys met Dickens, evidently soon after they settled in London in 1856. In Jan. 1857, they were guests at a performance of The Frozen Deep at Tavistock House. Dickens stated that he had "a great personal liking" for Priestley – "the great ladies' doctor," as he called him. Priestley was among those invited to hear Dickens's trial reading of the Sikes-Nancy murder scene; it was he who took Dickens aside before the reading to warn him that "if only one woman cries out when you murder the girl, there will be a contagion of hysteria all over this place" (Dickens to F. C Beard, Feb. 16, 1866; to Mrs. James T. Fields, Dec. 16, 1868).
      Lady Priestley stated that when her husband began medical practice in London and had as yet but few patients, "there was abundance of time for the young M.D. to write articles for All the Year Round" (Story of a Lifetime, p. 98). Priestley may have written for A.Y.R., but during his first years of medical practice in London, it was of course H.W., not A.Y.R., that was being published (elsewhere in her book, Lady Priestley also confounds the two periodicals). Priestley's H.W. article mentions Dr. James Young Simpson's experiments with chloroform and Simpson's introduction of chloroform as an anaesthetic. Priestley had been Simpson's private assistant in Edinburgh; he was co-editor of two volumes of Simpson's writings, 1855–56.
                   D.N.B. suppl. 1.901

Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1971

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography