Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Robertson, William Tindal
ROBERTSON, Sir WILLIAM TINDAL (1825–1889), physician, eldest son of Frederick Fowler Robertson of Bath, and of Anne Tindal his wife, was born in 1825. He was educated at King Edward VI's grammar school at Grantham, and he afterwards became a pupil of Dr. H. P. Robarts of Great Coram Street, and a student of University College, London. He matriculated at the London University in 1846, but he does not appear to have graduated. He obtained a license to practise from the Apothecaries' Company in 1848, and was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1850. He acted as resident medical officer at the Middlesex Hospital in 1848–9, and he became a resident surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital in 1850. He afterwards proceeded to Paris to complete his medical studies, and in 1853 he graduated M.D. at Edinburgh. He commenced to practise in Nottingham in the following year, and for nearly twenty years he acted as physician to the Nottingham General Hospital. An able speaker and an excellent organiser, he soon made his influence felt in Nottingham. Largely owing to his energy, the town now holds a conspicuous position among the great teaching centres of the north of England, for it was through his exertions that the Oxford local examinations were introduced into the town. The Literary and Philosophical Society also owed its origin largely to his endeavours, and he helped to found the Robin Hood rifles. He was a member of the Nottingham town council, and acted as a local secretary when the British Association met in the town in 1866. He also delivered the address on medicine at the meeting of the British Medical Association in 1857. His eyesight began to fail, and he soon became blind from glaucoma in 1873. He retired to Brighton, and in 1874 he was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London. At Brighton he interested himself in politics and municipal affairs. He was chairman of the Brighton town council, J.P. for Brighton and Sussex, chairman of the Brighton Conservative Association in 1880, and M.P. for that borough from 1886 till death. He was knighted in 1888. He died suddenly on 5 Oct. 1889. He married, in 1855, Elizabeth Ann, daughter of John Leavers of The Park, Nottingham, by whom he had four sons.
[Obituary notice in the British Medical Journal, 1889, ii. 848.]