Sir William Jenner, 1st Baronet, Queen Victoria’s Physician-in-Ordinary

by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2018

Sir William Jenner; Credit – Wikipedia

Sir William Jenner served Queen Victoria as Physician-in-Ordinary from 1861 – 1890.

Sir William Jenner was born on January 30, 1815, in Chatham, Kent, England. He was the fourth son of innkeeper John Jenner and his wife Elizabeth Terry.

In 1858, Jenner married Adela Lucy Leman, the daughter of Stephen Adey. Jenner and his wife had one daughter followed by five sons. It is interesting to note several names from Queen Victoria’s family among the names of Jenner’s sons.

  • Lucy Adela Jenner (1859 – 1909), unmarried, participated in the Women’s Suffrage movement
  • Sir Walter Kentish Jenner, 2nd Baronet (1860 – 1948), married Flora Alice Stewart, had children
  • Sir Albert Victor Jenner, 3rd Baronet (1862 – 1954)
  • Arthur Charles William Jenner (1864 – 1900), barrister
  • Louis Leopold Charles Albert Jenner (1865 – 1904)
  • Lieutenant-Colonel Leopold Christian Duncan Jenner (1869 – 1953), married Nora Helen Stewart

Before Jenner began his medical studies at University College London, he spent some time as an apprentice to a surgeon on Baker Street, near Regent’s Park in London. After receiving his medical degree in 1844, he set up his own general practice at 12 Albany Street, Regent’s Park in London. With a reputation for a kindly bedside manner and good medical knowledge, his medical practice prospered.

Initially interested in gynecology, Jenner soon began to take an interest in pathology, particularly in typhus and typhoid fever. In 1847, he began a detailed study of fever patients at the London Fever Hospital, scrutinizing more than 1,000 patients’ records. At that time, it was believed that typhus and typhoid fever were the same disease. Through his work, Jenner confirmed in 1849 that typhus and typhoid fever were two distinct diseases with very different causes. His work on the subject earned him an international reputation and made a huge impact on public health. Public health officials could now concentrate on getting rid of typhus by controlling the human flea population and on eradicating typhoid fever by devising methods to purify the water supply.

With the importance of Jenner’s pathology work, his career quickly progressed. He taught pathological anatomy at the University College of London and became a staff doctor at University College Hospital. In 1853, he was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. After the founding of the Hospital for Sick Children (now the Great Ormond Street Hospital) in 1852, Jenner became a resident doctor, one of only three permanent members of staff. While at the Hospital for Sick Children, Jenner wrote important studies on rickets and diphtheria, then a major cause of childhood deaths. In 1861, his fame reached Queen Victoria who appointed him her Physician-Extraordinary. At that time, Jenner gave up his post at Hospital for Sick Children.

In December 1861, Jenner was one of the doctors who attended Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband during the attack of typhoid fever that eventually killed him. Although Jenner diagnosed Albert’s final illness as typhoid fever, Albert’s modern biographers have argued that the diagnosis is incorrect. Albert had been complaining of stomach pains for two years and this may indicate that he died of some chronic disease, perhaps Crohn’s disease, kidney failure, or cancer. Despite his failure to save Albert, Jenner made a favorable impression on Queen Victoria, who appointed him her Physician-In-Ordinary in 1862. A year later, he was appointed to the same position for The Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII). Despite the differences in their backgrounds, Queen Victoria and Jenner became lifelong friends, and in 1868, she created Jenner a Baronet.

A caricature of Sir William Jenner which appeared in Vanity Fair, April 1873; Credit – Wikipedia

In 1871, Jenner attended The Prince of Wales while he was ill with typhoid fever. Despite death seeming imminent on the tenth anniversary of Prince Albert’s death, The Prince of Wales made a miraculous recovery. In December 1878, Jenner went to Darmstadt to attend Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine, Queen Victoria’s daughter who had become ill with diphtheria while nursing her family, also ill with the disease. Sadly, Alice died seventeen years to the day of her father’s death.

In 1890, Jenner was forced to retire from his position as Physician-In-Ordinary due to ill health. He went to live at his estate, Greenwood in Durley, Hampshire, England. It was there that he died on December 11, 1898, at the age of 83.

Sir William Jenner (1815–1898) (after Frank Holl) by Valentine Cameron Prinsep (1838–1904); Credit – Royal College of Physicians, London; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/sir-william-jenner-18151898-192436

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Recommended Book – Serving Queen Victoria: Life in the Royal Household by Kate Hubbard

Works Cited

  • “A FAMOUS PHYSICIAN; Sir William Jenner And His Practice Among Royalties. CHARACTERISTIC ANECDOTES A Struggling Boyhood, Earnings Of $75,000 A Year, And A Lonely Death After A Life Among Palaces.”. Nytimes.Com, 1898, https://www.nytimes.com/1898/12/27/archives/a-famous-physician-sir-william-jenner-and-his-practice-among.html. Accessed 4 June 2018.
  • “Past Presence – William Jenner”. Marylebonevillage.Com, https://www.marylebonevillage.com/marylebone-journal/past-presence-william-jenner. Accessed 4 June 2018.
  • “Sir William Jenner, 1st Baronet”. En.Wikipedia.Org, 2018, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_William_Jenner,_1st_Baronet. Accessed 4 June 2018.
  • “Sir William Jenner”. Ucl.Ac.Uk, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ich/support-services/library/library-historical-collection-/publications/jenner. Accessed 4 June 2018.
  • “The Dictionary Of National Biography, Supplement”. Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=7ikJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=sir+william+jenner+1st+baronet&source=bl&ots=ceDpDwA8Q8&sig=GKkhcaDtP8PPCJC7ij3Rncz9hzU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjExbm96qvbAhVhGDQIHa2QB3k4FBDoAQhDMAY#v=onepage&q=sir%20william%20jenner%201st%20baronet&f=false. Accessed 4 June 2018.
  •  “THE QUEEN’s PHYSICIAN DEAD.; Sir William Jenner, The Noted Pathologist And Celebrated Doctor, Has Passed Away.”. Nytimes.Com, 1898, https://www.nytimes.com/1898/12/13/archives/the-queens-physician-dead-sir-william-jenner-the-noted-pathologist.html. Accessed 4 June 2018.