Hugh Welch Diamond
Dr Hugh Welch Diamond (1809-1886), surgeon and photographer
1809 Born at Goudhurst, Kent, son of William Batchelor Diamond, a surgeon in the service of the East India Co.
Trained in London
1831 Married Jane Warwick in London[1]
1834 Became a member of the College of Surgeons
1848-53/6 Resident superintendent of female patients at the Surrey County Asylum
1851 Hugh Welch Diamond 42, widower, resident medical officer, ..., lived at Surrey County Lunatic Asylum in Wandsworth with Warren Hastings Diamond 16, Mary Margaret Diamond 9, Hugh Ernest Diamond 6[2]
1851 Married Theresa Butler in London[3]
Also studied photography; developed an alternative to glass negatives
1852 Mentioned as one of the country's best photographers in connection with a review of a photographic exhibition[4]
1855-8 Diamond also belonged to the Photographic Exchange Club, an organization that exchanged prints by post between its twenty-two members twice a year.
1856 Diamond resigned his position at the Surrey County Asylum and moved to Twickenham, where he established a private asylum for female patients.
1859-69 Secretary of the Photographic Society of London and edited its journal. Within this Society he helped form the Photographic Society Club, a dining club that met five times a year to discuss photographic matters.
Applied his photographic interests to study of the mentally ill. Faraday presented him with £300 from a collection made amongst scientists
One of the first members of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain
1881 Hugh Welch Diamond 72, M. D., M. R. C. S., English L. S. A., head of the Twickenham House Asylum, living with his daughter Theresa Diamond 30[5]
1886 Died in Twickenham
See Also
Sources of Information
- Biography, DNB and ODNB