Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mayo, Thomas
MAYO, THOMAS (1790–1871), president of the Royal College of Physicians, eldest son of John Mayo [q. v.], born in London 24 Jan. 1790, commenced his education under the Rev. John Smith of Eltham, and after eighteen months at Westminster School was transferred to the private tuition of the Rev. George Richards, vicar of Bampton, Oxfordshire. He entered at Oriel College 1807, and obtained a first class in literis humanioribus 1811. Dr. Copleston, the provost, recorded that this was the best classical examination he ever heard. Mayo was elected fellow of Oriel 23 April 1813, ‘to the attainment of which honour I had pledged myself to my father, provided he would permit me to escape the Foundation of Westminster and its peculiar training, which combined with a very fair proportion of Latin and Greek occasional aerostation in a blanket.’
He graduated M.A. 1814, B.M. 1815, and D.M. in 1818. On his father's death he succeeded to his lucrative practice at Tunbridge Wells, and in 1835 settled in London, residing at 56 Wimpole Street. He became F.R.C.P. 1819, censor of the college 1835, 1839, and 1850, and delivered the Lumleian lectures in 1839 and 1842, the Harveian oration in 1841, and the Croonian lectures in 1853, and was named an elect in 1847. In 1835 he became F.R.S., and in 1841 physician to the Marylebone Infirmary. He was also physician in ordinary to the Duke of Sussex. On 5 January 1857 he was elected president of the Royal College of Physicians, and was annually re-elected until 1862.
‘Mayo presided over the college at a most critical period of its history, when it was undergoing those changes in its constitution that were rendered necessary by the Medical Act of 1858 and the amendment of 1860. In the necessary deliberations Mayo, as president, took an active part, and the fellows of the college acknowledged his services by retaining him for another year in his office. In 1862 Mayo withdrew from practice, and resided first at Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, and then with his son at Corsham, Wiltshire, where he died 13 Jan. 1871, and where he was buried.
‘Mayo was an accomplished and vigorous writer, an acute and logical thinker, and occupied a high position among his contemporaries. He was an authority on mental diseases (see his Croonian lectures, No. 7 below). In 1860 he delivered a remarkable address at the Royal Institution on the ‘Relations of the Public to the Science and Practice of Medicine.’
He twice married; first, Lydia, daughter of John Bill, M.D., of Farley Hall, Staffordshire, and secondly, Susan Mary, widow of Rear-admiral Sir William Symonds, and daughter of the Rev. John Briggs, fellow of Eton College, and had issue (by the first marriage only), Augustus Frederick Mayo, B.A., barrister-at-law, Rev. Robert Mayo, B.A., Charles Thomas Mayo of Corsham, Wiltshire, and four other children.
He published: 1. ‘Essay on the Influence of Temperament in Modifying Dyspepsia,’ 1831. 2. ‘Essay on relation of the Theory of Morals to Insanity,’ 1831. 3. ‘Elements of the Pathology of the Human Mind,’ 1838. 4. ‘Harveian Oration,’ 1841. 5. ‘Clinical Facts and Reflections,’ 1847. 6. ‘Outlines of Medical Proof,’ 1848 and 1850, with ‘Sequel,’ 1849. 7. ‘Medical Testimony in Cases of Lunacy’ (Croonian lectures), 1854, with supplement, 1856. 8. ‘Medical Examinations and Physicians' Requirements considered,’ 1857.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. iii. 200; Hist. of Mayo Family, 1882.]