Robert Peel Ritchie

Ritchie's house at 1 Melville Crescent, Edinburgh (left)

Dr Robert Peel Ritchie MD FRSE PRCPE (1835-1902) was a Scottish physician and medical historian.

Life

The grave of Robert Peel Ritchie MD, Dean Cemetery

He was born on 18 January 1835. He studied Medicine at Edinburgh University.

In the 1860s he was living at 16 Hill Street in the First New Town in Edinburgh.^[1]

In 1866 he was elected a member of the Harveian Society of Edinburgh and served as president in 1896.^[2] In 1883 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Thomas Graham Balfour, Alexander Crum Brown, John Hutton Balfour and Isaac Anderson Henry. From 1887 to 1889 he was President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He was also a member of the Scottish Microscopical Society.^[3] In 1887 he was elected a member of the Aesculapian Club.^[4]

He lived at 1 Melville Crescent in Edinburgh's fashionable West End.^[5] His next-door neighbour was the eminent surgeon Joseph Bell.

He died in Edinburgh on 10 February 1902. He is buried in Dean Cemetery with his wife Mary Anderson of Bleaton Hallet, and son, Dr Lionel Charles Peel Ritchie. The grave is marked by an obelisk and stands in the south-east section.

Family

His son Henry Peel Ritchie won the Victoria Cross in the First World War.

His son Dr Lionel Charles Peel Ritchie was drowned in Granton Harbour in 1914.^[6]

Publications

• Thomas Hill Pattison MD (1885)^[7]
• On the Remedies used by the Caffres to Prevent Blood Poisoning from Anthrax (1887)
• The Early Days of the Royall Colledge of Physitians, Edinburgh (1899)^[8]

References

1. Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1868
2. Watson Wemyss, Herbert Lindesay (1933). A Record of the Edinburgh Harveian Society. T&A Constable, Edinburgh.
3. Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X.
4. Minute Books of the Aesculapian Club. Library of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
5. Edinburgh and Leith Post Office Directory 1901-2
6. Grave of Robert Peel Ritchie, Dean Cemetery
7. "Thomas Hill Pattison, M.D". Edinburgh : printed by Oliver and Boyd. 21 April 1885 – via Internet Archive.
8. "Ritchie, Robert Peel, 1835-1902 | The Online Books Page". onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu.