The Cyclopedia of Practical Surgery was authored by William Bloxam and revised by Charles Millard. The lithographs were originally drawn by A.A. Cane, and George Edward Madeley, an engraver and lithographer, printed the images for the volume.

William Bloxam

William [Ward] Bloxam was born on 4 October 1806, in North Walsham, Norfolk. Interestingly, the 1806 baptism register notes that he was the ‘illegitimate son of Charlotte Bloxam’. Despite William’s contentious birth, he rose to great prominence as a practitioner of medicine.

William married wife Mary Packwood on 14 April 1828, in Stivichall, Warwickshire. The two had four children together: William Bloxam Jr. (b. 1830); Charles Loudon Bloxam (b. 1831); Matthew Bloxam (b. 1835); and Thomas Bloxam (b. 1838).

The 1841 census showed William and Mary living on Hanover Square, in Mayfair, with William’s occupation listed as ‘surgeon’. An 1845 trade directory showed that the family address was now 28 Duke Street, still in Mayfair. The 1846 medical directory gives more information as to William’s medical qualification: He was ‘Surgeon Accoucher’, a doctor specialising in obstetrics, at the Royal Lying-in Hospital in Lambeth, one of the first maternity hospitals in Britain. He became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) in 1829. He was a lecturer on ‘Midwifery and Diseases of Women and Children’ at the school of medicine adjoining St. George’s Hospital.

Unfortunately, in 1849, his wife Mary passed away. In both 1851 and 1861, William was still living at his address in 28 Duke Street, now widowed, with his sons. William died only a few years later, and was buried on 9 November 1865, at All Souls Church in Kensal Green.

All of William and Mary’s sons went on to have scientific careers. William Bloxam Jr. became a GP, and his children followed on the tradition, with son Hugh Charles Loudon (b. 1872), becoming a lecturer in chemistry, and daughter Henrietta Marion Packwood (b. 1858) having a career as a trained nurse. Matthew Bloxam also became a GP, Thomas Bloxam worked as a lecturer in chemistry

Charles Loudon Bloxam also became a professor and teacher of chemistry, and married Frederica Louisa Abel, sister of Sir Frederick August Abel, a chemist and explosives expert who invented cordite, a replacement for gunpowder in firearms. Charles and Sir Frederick collaborated on a volume entitled Handbook of Chemistry, Theoretical, Practical and Technical. Both The Cyclopedia of Practical Surgery and Handbook of Chemistry were held in the Library of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London as of 1879.

Charles Millard

Charles Millard was born in c. 1808 to father Reverend C.F. Millard and mother Mary Anne Berry. Charles unfortunately died on 29 April 1835, at the age of just 27. Despite his young age, he made an impact on his students, working as Demonstrator of the Webb Street School of Anatomy. There are very few records of Charles’ life, as he died before the first comprehensive British census in 1841, but the Gentleman’s Magazine recorded his marriage to Jane Amyot on 29 April 1835. The magazine also published an obituary upon his death, writing that:

‘he obtained great celebrity as a teacher, being […] distinguished not only by his superior acquirements, and extraordinary industry, but especially by the very lucid and yet comprehensive manner in which he conveyed to his bearers the details of even the most intricate branches of human anatomy’.