Jonathan Wathen-Waller

Jonathan Wathen Waller
hand-tinted lithograph
Born	(1769-10-06)6 October 1769 London
Died	1 January 1853(1853-01-01) (aged 83) St. Marylebone, London
Occupation	ophthalmologist
Years active	1795 - 1837
Known for	Eye doctor of George III, George IV and William IV

Sir Jonathan Wathen Waller, 1st Baronet, GCH (6 October 1769 – 1 January 1853), was an English eye surgeon, who practiced in London during the latter part of Georgian era. He was the eye doctor of King George III of England and his son William IV. He also attended the death of George IV.

Waller was born Jonathan Wathen Phipps on 6 October 1769 in London to Joshua Phipps and Mary Allen, the step-daughter of Jonathan Wathen, a well-known eye surgeon, who practiced in London from about 1760 until his 1808 death. The elder Jonathan for many years had a junior partner in his practice named James Ware, who ultimately became one of the best known eye surgeons in the city. When Ware in 1791 dissolved their partnership to begin his own practice, Wathen took on his step grandson Jonathan Phipps as an apprentice. As with Ware, Phipp's medical reputation grew, and by 1795 he had become the oculist (eye doctor) to both King George III, and George's third son William.

The War with Napoleon took place during the latter part of George III's reign, and many soldiers returning to Britain from the Nile Campaign had contracted a virulent eye disease widely known as the "Egyptian ophthalmia". Little was known at the time about treating it effectively, and this led Phipps to start in 1804 the Royal Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye, which was the first hospital of its kind in London. The establishment of this institution preceded by several months the 1805 founding by John Cunningham Saunders of the much better known London Dispensary for curing Diseases of the Eye and Ear on Charterhouse Square, which later became the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital (Moorfields Eye Hospital).