Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Hunter, William Guyer
HUNTER, Sir WILLIAM GUYER (1827–1902), surgeon-general, born at Calcutta in 1827, was eldest son of Thomas Hunter of Catterick near Richmond in Yorkshire. Educated at King's College school, he began his professional training at Charing Cross Hospital in 1844; became M.R.C.S. England in 1849; F.R.C.S. Edinburgh in 1858; M.D. Aberdeen, and M.R.C.P. London in 1867, and F.R.C.P. in 1875.
Nominated an assistant surgeon in the Bengal medical service in May 1850, he served through the second Burmese war of 1862–3 which led to the annexation of Pegu. For this campaign, during which his life was endangered by cholera, he received a medal and clasp. In 1854 he received high commendation from the Bombay Medical Board for successfully establishing dispensaries in Raligaum, Ahghur, and Shikapur, and in 1857 the thanks of the government for zeal and skill during a fever epidemic in Shikapur, and for repressing a revolt of eight hundred prisoners in the jail of that station. During the Mutiny he acted as civil surgeon in Upper Scinde and obtained brevet rank of surgeon. He again received the thanks of government and was granted a medal. His health being shattered by the experiences of the year he came home on furlough, but was recalled to Bombay to take up the appointment of physician to the Jamsetji Jijibhoy hospital and professor of medicine in the Grant Medical College, of which he was made principal in 1876. The institution prospered under his administration; he found it with sixteen students, he left it with two hundred. He was made deputy surgeon-general in 1876, and was specially promoted to the rank of surgeon-general in 1877, when he received the thanks of government for organising the medical and hospital equipment for active service when troops were sent to Malta from India. His scheme was ultimately adopted throughout India.
In 1880 he was appointed by Sir Richard Temple [q.v. Suppl. II] vice-chancellor of the University of Bombay, a distinction usually reserved for members of the legislative council and judges of the high court in India. On his retirement from the service in 1880 he received much honourable recognition. He was appointed honorary surgeon to Queen Victoria; the inhabitants of Bombay presented him with a public address, gave his portrait to the Grant Medical College, and founded a scholarship. On his return to England he was elected a consulting physician to the Charing Cross Hospital, London.
In 1883, on the occasion of a severe outbreak of epidemic cholera in Egypt, Hunter at the request of the Indian Medical Board, was sent on a special mission to investigate it. He wrote an able report showing the urgent need of efficient sanitation in Egypt and emphasising the superior value of sanitary measures to quarantine regulations. The report was adversely criticised, but its main conclusions seem justified. In 1886 he pressed his views on the sanitary conference at Rome, which he attended as the official representative of Great Britain. He was made K.C.M.G. in 1884 and hon. LL.D. of Aberdeen in 1894.
In his last years he was prominent in English public life. From 1886 to 1887 he was a member of the London school board for the Westminster division, and from 1885 to 1892 he was conservative M.P. for Central Hackney. While in parliament he was chairman of the Water Inquiry Committee of the City of London, and a member of the departmental committee to 'enquire into the best mode of deahng with habitual drunkards.' He also did admirable service in connection with the vaccination commission, the shop hours bill, and the midwives' registration bill.
During 1884–5 he was especially interested in the formation of the volunteer medical staff corps (now the royal army medical corps, territorial), of which he was the first honorary commandant.
He died at his residence, Anerley Hill, Upper Norwood, on 4 March 1902, and was buried at Paddington cemetery.
Hunter married (1) in 1856 a daughter of Christopher Packe, vicar of Ruislip, Middlesex; (2) in 1871 the second daughter of Joseph Stainburn.
[Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, 1903, vol. lxxxvi. p. cvii; Lancet, 1902, vol. ii. p. 856; Brit. Med. Journal, 1902, vol. i. p. 749.]