Forbes Winslow

Forbes Benignus Winslow DCL, FRCP Edin., MRCP, MRCS, MD, (10 August 1810 – 3 March 1874) was a British psychiatrist, author and an authority on mental illness during the Victorian era. Winslow was the ninth son of Thomas Winslow (1772–1815), a captain in the 47th Regiment of Foot, and his wife, Mary (née Forbes) (1774–1854). He was born at Pentonville in August 1810. One of his brothers was Octavius Winslow. The family lost their American property in the American War of Independence and came to England. After education in Scotland, in 1820, aged 10, Forbes Winslow travelled to New York where he continued his education before returning to Britain to study medicine. After education at University College London, and at Middlesex Hospital, where he was a pupil of Sir Charles Bell, he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1835, and graduated MD at the University of Aberdeen in 1849. He had to pay the expenses of his own medical education by acting as a reporter for The Times in the gallery of the House of Commons, and by writing small manuals for students on osteology, and on practical midwifery.