Francis Willis (physician) - Treating The King

Treating The King

George III had his first attack of madness, now usually identified as porphyria, which could have been triggered by an excess of rich wines or more likely an over exposure to the arsenic related to the elaborate hats commonly worn in the Georgian period. The court physicians were baffled by the symptoms and failed to treat the King successfully. In 1788 Willis was recommended to the increasingly concerned Queen Consort by an Equerry’s wife, whose mother Willis had treated successfully.

Willis's treatment of the King at Greatford and at The White House, Kew, included many of the standard methods of the period, including coercion, restraint in a strait jacket and blistering of the skin, but there was also more kindness and consideration for the patient than was then the norm. Despite his rank the King was not excused from Willis’s regime of fresh air and physical labour.

The King's recovery made Willis's national reputation and he had to open a second establishment at the nearby Shillingthorpe Hall in Braceborough to accommodate the numbers of patients seeking his help. Shillingthorpe Hall was demolished in 1949.

When on 26 February 1789 Willis’s bulletin described the "entire cessation of his Majesty's illness" he became a British celebrity and was soon recognised through five portraits by John Russell, one of the most renowned portrait painters of the day. Willis commissioned a special medal to commemorate his own achievements. The Reverend Doctor Francis Willis was rewarded by the King with £1,000 a year for 21 years and assistant and son Dr John Willis with £650 a year for the rest of his life.

Twelve years later in 1801 King George suffered a relapse and his symptoms returned. On the second occasion he was treated by Francis’s two sons, also physicians, John Willis and his younger brother, Robert Darling Willis. The King remained a frequent visitor to Francis Willis at Shillingthorpe Hall for several years after his treatment was concluded. The King had a final relapse in 1810 that proved incurable and he lapsed into an illness and madness that lasted until his death in 1820.