Skip to main content

Author: Beatty, Thomas Edward

Biography:

BEATTY, Thomas Edward (1800-72: Cameron)

The son of John Beatty and a Miss Betagh, daughter of a solicitor, he was born at Dublin. His father was a surgeon who specialised in obstetrics and wrote an influential treatise promoting the use of forceps. At fourteen Beatty was apprenticed to a surgeon in Dublin and began studying at Trinity College Dublin, earning his BA in 1818. He went to Edinburgh to complete his Doctor of Medicine and wrote a dissertation on aneurism. In 1821 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin; in 1824 he was appointed a fellow of the college and, in 1850, became President. He helped to establish the City of Dublin Hospital. Like his father, he specialised in obstetrics, and he was a fellow of the Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. He was twice married: in 1823 to Margaret Mayne with whom he had at least one child, a son; and to Maria Catherine Colburn, a widow. He was a friend of William Wilde, father of Oscar Wilde, and was said to sing at dinners at Wilde’s house on Merrion Square. In 1864 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Dublin. He died at the home of his nephew in Dublin of cellulitis following tooth extraction, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Ann’s, Dawson Street, Dublin. There is a memorial to him in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. (Charles A. Cameron, History of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland [1886]; “Obituary,” Medical Times and Gazette 11 May 1872; ancestry.co.uk 8 Jan. 2021)

 

Books written (1):