James Wardrop

Dr James Wardrop or Wardrope FRSE FRCSEd FRCS (1782–1869) was a Scottish surgeon and ophthalmologist. Life Wardrop was born on 14 August 1782, the youngest son of James Wardrop (1738-1830) and his wife, Marjory Marjoribanks, at Torbane Hill, near Linlithgow, West Lothian, but at four years of age moved with the family to live in Edinburgh where he attended the High School, and then St Andrews University. In 1800 he was apprenticed to a leading firm of surgeon apothecaries in Edinburgh, which included Benjamin Bell, James Russell and his great uncle Andrew Wardrop, former president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, and in 1801 was appointed House Surgeon at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He trained in London from 1801 under John Abernethy and Astley Cooper, then, from 1803 undertook further studies in Paris before moving to Vienna , where he joined his friend John Wishart studying ophthalmology under Georg Joseph Beer, one of the most celebrated eye surgeons in Europe. He was admitted a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1804 and worked at the Public Dispensary and set up in surgical practice specialising as an ophthalmic surgeon. In 1807 he became assistant curator of Surgeons' Hall Museum under Professor John Thomson and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1808, upon the proposal of Andrew Wardrop, Alexander Keith of Dunnottar and James Russell. In 1805 he was elected a member of the Aesculapian Club. In 1808 he was sharing a large Georgian house in Edinburgh's First New Town at 4 South Hanover Street.