H. T. Whittell

Horatio Thomas Whittell MD., MRCS. (1826 – 21 August 1899), generally referred to as H. T. Whittell or H. Thomas Whittell, was a medical doctor in South Australia and Adelaide's City Coroner.

Whittell was born in Warwick, England, and had a happy childhood. He was educated at one of the private schools in Leamington. At age nineteen he entered Queen's College, Birmingham, to study medicine and in his spare time read books about legal cases. He received his diploma as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and served some time as house surgeon at Queen's Hospital. He spent ten years practicing in Birmingham, then obtained his M.D. degree at Aberdeen.

He arrived in Adelaide in May 1858 and was soon an active member of the Total Abstinence Society.He had a very busy practice practice, first operating from his home on Grenfell Street, near the Sturt Hotel, then ten years later on North Terrace. Adelaide experienced an outbreak of diphtheria around July to September 1859, and Whittell, who had had some experience of an epidemic in England shortly before he left, was kept busy. By a remarkable piece of timing, his booklet on the disease appeared in the bookshops in August that year. He initially had a solo practice, then after the death of Dr. Anton Bayer in 1866, joined his erstwhile partner Dr. William Gosse (c. 1813–1883) in partnership for about six years then returned to a solo practice. In 1879, suffering perhaps from overwork, he took on Dr. J. Davies Thomas (c. 1845–1893) as a partner. At the end of that year he sold the practice to Dr. Thomas, and sought recuperation in an extended trip to Europe. He remained in Europe for two and a half years, and became vitally interested in the recent microbial discoveries and developed a passion for microscopy. He associated with the leading microscopical men at the time when bacteriology was beginning to have a marked effect upon the views of the pathologists in London. He met Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur, the great scientists whose discoveries were attracting world-wide attention, and made a lasting impression on Whittell.

Whittell succeeded Gosse as President of the Central Board of Health on 20 August 1883, and applied microscopy to the solution of many problems of public sanitation. In January 1886, as part of a series of retrenchments, he was appointed Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths to replace J. F. Cleland. This was in addition to his Board of Health duties without any addition to his salary. On the (perhaps forced) resignation of Thomas Ward (1815 – 28 December 1888) in October 1888, Whittell was appointed City Coroner on top of his duties at the Central Board of Health, and in addition was made Vaccination Officer and Inspector of Anatomy. Despite his multiple roles, Whittell was being seriously discussed by Parliament for retrenchment. He was replaced as Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages by George Hamilton Ayliffe, son of Thomas Hamilton Ayliffe, in January 1889.

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