Henry Maudsley

Henry Maudsley FRCP (5 February 1835 – 23 January 1918) was a pioneering British psychiatrist, commemorated in the Maudsley Hospital in London and in the annual Maudsley Lecture of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Early life and career

Maudsley was born on an isolated farm near Giggleswick in the North Riding of Yorkshire and educated at Giggleswick School. Maudsley lost his mother at an early age. His aunt cared for him, teaching him poetry which he would recite to the servants, and secured for him a top tutor and an expensive apprenticeship to University College London medical school. He earned ten Gold Medals and graduated with an M.D. degree in 1857, though is said to have avoided subjects and clinical work he found onerous and to have antagonised his teachers.

He apparently had some intention to then pursue a career in surgery but, according to his autobiography, when he didn't receive a letter of reply to his first application because it was mistakenly sent to his old address, he changed his mind and decide to leave the country to work for the East India Company. However this required him to first do six months in an asylum, so he gained an asylum job at the West Riding Asylum in Wakefield for nine months. He then worked, less happily, at the Essex County Asylum at Brentwood for a brief period.