Henry Halford - Professional Career

Professional Career

This section is based substantially on the Royal College of Physicians's profile as there are no other sources available on his professional life.

Vaughan (as he then was) practised for a short time with his father at Leicester. He went to London in about 1792, and was initially told that he could not succeed for five years, and must support himself on £300 annually in private income. Undaunted, he borrowed £1,000, and started his professional life in London. He advanced rapidly, owing in part to his smooth manners and his Oxford connections.

He was elected physician to the Middlesex hospital on the 20 February 1793; was admitted a Candidate of the Royal College of Physicians on the 25 March 1793; and a Fellow on the 14 April 1794. And in 1793, he was appointed physician extraordinary to the king (the youngest ever appointed aged 27). By the year 1800, his private engagements had become so numerous, that he was compelled to relinquish his hospital appointment. His professional career was undoubtedly advanced by his marriage in 1795 to Elizabeth, the daughter of John St John, 12th Baron St John of Bletso.

He was made a baronet in 1809, at which time he also changed his name from Vaughan to Halford by Act of Parliament, in expectation of his inheritance (see below).

In 1812, Halford was appointed physician in ordinary to George III of the United Kingdom, having previously been appointed physician in ordinary to the Prince Regent. He continued to serve as physician in ordinary to successive sovereigns until his death in 1844. He also served as physician to other members of the Royal Family, notably the Princess Amelia, youngest daughter of George III.

In 1813 he was involved in the exhumation of the hitherto missing body of Charles I, discovered by accident during building work in St George's Chapel. The fourth vertebra, bearing the marks of the axe, came into his possession.

Halford was also notably active in the Royal College of Physicians, serving in various posts. On the 30 September 1820 he was elected President, an office to which he was annually and unanimously re-elected for an unprecedented 24 years, until his death on the 9 March 1844 in the seventy-eighth year of his age. The College owes its removal from Warwick-lane to Pall-mall East in 1825 to Sir Henry Halford's exertions.

Halford was a fellow of the Royal and Antiquarian societies, and a trustee of Rugby School which he had attended; and, in virtue of his office as President of the College of Physicians, he was president of the National Vaccine Establishment, and a trustee of the British Museum.

He was known to his contemporaries as “The Prince and Lord Chesterfield of all medical practitioners”, and less complimentarily as “the eel-backed baronet in consequence of his deep and oft-repeated bows." Among his recorded advice is: "Never read by candlelight anything smaller than the Ace of Clubs".