William Overend Priestley

Sir William Overend Priestley (24 June 1829 – 11 April 1900) was a British physician and Conservative Party politician. He served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities from 1896 to 1900. Priestley was born in Leeds and trained in Edinburgh as an obstetrician and gynecologist. He moved to London in 1856, became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and was knighted in 1893 in recognition of his medical services. Life The eldest son of Joseph Priestley (the nephew of natural philosopher Joseph Priestley) and Mary, daughter of James Overend of Morley, he was born in Churwell, near Leeds, on 24 June 1829. When he was very young, the family moved to Morley Hall. He was educated at Leeds, King's College London, Paris, and the University of Edinburgh. He was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1852, and in 1853 he graduated M.D. at Edinburgh, taking as his thesis ‘The Development of the Gravid Uterus.’ (awarded Professor Simpson's gold medal and the senate gold medal). He was taught surgery by Prof Monro and Dr Robert Halliday Gunning. Priestley acted as the private assistant of Sir James Young Simpson for some time after his graduation, but in 1856 he came to London and gave lectures at the Grosvenor Place School of Medicine. In 1858 he was appointed lecturer on midwifery at the Middlesex Hospital, and in 1862 he was elected professor of obstetric medicine at King's College London, and obstetric physician to King's College Hospital, in the place of Arthur Farre. These posts he resigned in 1872, and he was then appointed consulting obstetric physician to the hospital, becoming an honorary fellow of King's College and a member of the council.