#174, Thomas Spencer COBBOLD

Thomas Spencer was born in Ipswich in May 1828, 3rd. son of Rev. Richard Cobbold (of Margaret Catchpole fame) and Mary Anne Waller, allegedly descended from Edmond Waller the poet.

He was schooled at Charterhouse and apprenticed at 16 to John Green Crosse, a well known surgeon in Norwich who helped develop Thomas Spencer's bent towards Natural History and particularly his interest in comparative anatomy as a result of which he became a skilled dissector. In 1851 he graduated MD gold medalist from Edinburgh University which was the start of a career in research rather than practice, but of the greatest diversity.

Later, he was vice-president of the University Club; vice-president of the Birmingham Natural History & Microscopial Society; corresponding member of the Acadamy of Science at Philadelphia and the Royal Agricultural Acadamy in Turin. He became Professor of Botany and Helminthology at the Royal Vetinery College and Emeritus Swiney Professor of Geology at the British Museum and was for some time examiner in comparative anatomy, zoology and botany at St.Mary's Hospital and lecturer in the same three disciplines at the Middlesex.

He never lost his loyalty to his alma mater becoming the curator of the Anatomical Museum at Edinburgh and being elected senior president  of the Royal Medical Society in Edinburgh on 10th December 1851 and later vice president of the Physiological Society. As well as being a clear if dogmatic lecturer and a much enjoyed after dinner singer he was the author of numerous works on Helminthology and in an unexpected change of direction he practiced in Wimpole St. and later in Harley St. for ten years.

He died at home at the relatively early age of 57 from heart desease in part occasioned by over work.

His principal books are:

1) Entozoa; an introduction to the study of Helminthology, with reference more particularly to the internal parasites of man, 1864

2) Entozoa, a supplement to the last work, 1869

3) The Grouse Disease, 1873

4) The Internal Parasites of our Domesticated Animals, 1873

5) Parasites, 1879

6) Tapeworms, 1866; fourth edition, 1883

7) Worms, 1872

8) Human Parasites, 1882

9) Parasites of Meat and Prepared Flesh Food, 1884

10) Our Food-producing Ruminants and the Parasite which reside in them, Cantor Lectures 1871

11) Catalogue of the Specimens of Entozoa in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1866

His will was proved 19th April 1886 by Charles Spencer Waller Cobbold, his son, of Earleswood Asylum, Red Hill, Surrey MD and John Henry Hortin,161 Edgware Road Middx, Solicitor

Note: The Cobbold FHT has copies of many of his works, including his contribution to The Museum of Natural History (1860)

Anthony Cobbold 2006