Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Morehead, Charles

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1322932Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 39 — Morehead, Charles1894Alexander John Arbuthnot

MOREHEAD, CHARLES (1807–1882), member of the Bombay medical service, second son of Robert Morehead, rector of Easington in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and brother of William Ambrose Morehead [q. v.], was born at Edinburgh in 1807, and proceeded M.D. there. At Edinburgh his zeal for clinical medicine attracted the attention of Professor William Pulteney Alison [q. v.], and he continued his medical studies in Paris under Pierre Louis. In 1829 he entered the Bombay medical service, and was afterwards on the personal staff of the governor, Sir Robert Grant [q. v.] Morehead was the founder of native medical education in Western India. After Grant's death in 1838 he was appointed to the European and native general hospitals of Bombay, and it was owing to his efforts that the Grant Medical College at Bombay was erected as a memorial of Grant in 1845. Morehead was the first principal of the Grant College, and the first professor of medicine. He was also the first physician of the Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Hospital, in which the students of the college receive their clinical instruction. He originated the Bombay Medical and Physical Society for the advancement of medical science and its collateral branches, and also the Grant College Medical Society, designed as a bond of union among former students of the college. He was the author of an elaborate work entitled 'Researches on the Diseases of India,' 1856, 2 vols. 8vo, which passed through two editions, and is a standard authority. He was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians. Morehead retired from the Bombay medical service in 1862. In 1881 he was created a companion of the order of the Indian Empire. He died at Wilton Castle, Yorkshire, the seat of his brother-in-law, Sir Charles Lowther, on 24 Aug. 1882. In 1844 he married Harriet Anne, daughter of George Barnes, first archdeacon of Bombay.

[This article is mainly based upon a notice of Dr. Morehead, published in 1882, Edinburgh. See also Times, 28 Aug. 1882, and Lancet, 1882, ii. 468.]

A. J. A.