Charles Longuet Higgins

Charles Longuet Higgins (1806–1885) was an English landowner, physician and benefactor.

Turvey Abbey in Bedfordshire came into the Higgins family around 1787, when Charles Higgins, who served as Sheriff of London, bought the manor of Turvey from Charles Henry Mordaunt, 5th Earl of Peterborough. John Higgins, nephew to Charles Higgins, inherited it in 1792.

John Higgins was the son of Thomas Higgins (died 1794), brother to Charles Higgins and youngest of the five sons of John Higgins, and his wife Mary Parrott.William Cowper wrote a monumental inscription for Mary Higgins, who died in 1791; he was a neighbour of the Higgins family in Weston Underwood, Buckinghamshire from about 1786 to 1792. John Higgins drew a pencil portrait of Cowper, and also painted landscapes. He was High Sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1801.

The eldest son of John Higgins of Turvey Abbey, and Theresa, eldest daughter of Benjamin Longuet of Louth and Bath, Charles Longuet Higgins was born in his father's house on 30 November 1806. He received his early education at home, and matriculated as a pensioner of Trinity College, Cambridge on 14 November 1825. At Cambridge he came under the influence of Charles Simeon. He graduated B.A. in 1830, and M.A. in 1834.

Higgins did not go into the Church, which was against his father's wishes. He was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn on 16 November 1830, but was not called to the bar. From 1836 to 1838 he studied medicine in London, at St Bartholomew's Hospital, or St Thomas' Hospital.

Having qualified in medicine, Higgins carried on a general medical practice in Turvey. On the death of his father in 1846 he succeeded to the family property. He went on a five month tour, with his brother Henry, in Egypt, Syria and Palestine, in 1848.

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