Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Budd, Richard

1320812Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 07 — Budd, Richard1886George Thomas Bettany

BUDD, RICHARD (1746–1821), physician, was born in 1746 at Newbury, Berkshire, where his father was a banker. He entered at Jesus College, Oxford (where his great-great-grandfather, Richard Budd, had founded a scholarship in 1630); and was admitted M.B. in 1770, and M.D. in 1775. After practising for some years at Newbury he removed to London in 1780, where he was in the same year elected physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, an office which he held until his retirement in 1801. Having become a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1777, he attained considerable official status therein, being six times censor between 1780 and 1798, Gulstonian lecturer and Harveian orator in 1781, treasurer from March 1799 to April 1814, and elect from December 1797 to July 1818. He did not exert himself greatly in private practice, having married the only child of a wealthy merchant named Stabler. He is described as a man of strong will, impetuosity, and positiveness, and of great social influence. He died at Battersea Rise 2 Sept. 1821, and was buried at Speen, near Newbury. One of his sons, the Rev. Henry Budd [q. v.], became well known as the chaplain of Bridewell and a leading evangelical clergyman. The chaplaincy was secured by his father's indefatigable canvassing. Another son was the Rev. Richard Budd, B.D., rector of Ruan Lanihorne, Cornwall.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. 1878, ii. 311; Memoir of Rev. Henry Budd, 1855.]