Biography

Thomas Barlow was born at Brantwood Fold, Edgworth, near Bolton, Lancashire, on 4 September 1845; he was the eldest of seven children of James Barlow (1821–1887) of Greenthorne, Edgworth, who established the cotton mills of Barlow and Jones at Edgworth and Bolton, and his wife, Alice (d. 1888), daughter of James Barnes, also of Edgworth. Barlow's early scientific interests led to thoughts of a medical career despite his father's wish that he join the family business. After four years at Owens College, Manchester, where he read natural sciences, Barlow graduated BSc (London) in 1867 and the following year he entered University College, London, as a medical student. Having qualified in 1870 he was appointed house physician to Sir William Jenner at University College Hospital. He passed his second MB and BS in 1873, both with first-class honours, and was awarded his MD the following year. In 1874 Barlow was appointed medical registrar at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, and was elected assistant physician the following year. In 1885 he was promoted full physician, from which position he retired in 1899. He was also, successively, assistant physician at Charing Cross Hospital (1875–1877) and of the London Hospital (1877–1880) before returning to University College Hospital in 1880 as assistant physician; there he served as full physician from 1885 until his retirement in 1910, when he became consulting physician. He held the Holme chair of clinical medicine from 1895 to 1907. He was also, from 1884 to 1888, on the staff of the London Fever Hospital. On 30 December 1880 Barlow married Ada Helen (1843–1928), daughter of Patrick Dalmahoy, writer to the signet, of Edinburgh. She was a former ward sister at the Great Ormond Street Hospital; they had three sons and two daughters, the younger of whom died in infancy. The eldest son was Sir (James) Alan Noel Barlow (1881–1968); the second was Sir Thomas Dalmahoy Barlow (1883–1964); and the third, Patrick Basil (1884–1917), died on the western front during the First World War. Barlow is best known for his original researches on scurvy in infants and young children but also made major contributions, notably in the study of meningitis and rheumatic illness in children. Most of Barlow's important research was accomplished by the age of forty. After the mid-1880s his attention was increasingly focused on private practice. Resident first in Bloomsbury and, from 1887, at 10 Wimpole Street, he ministered to an ever more elevated circle of private patients, including the dukes of Grafton and Rutland, lords Selborne and Salisbury, and Randall Davidson, archbishop of Canterbury. In 1896 he was appointed physician to the royal household and, from 1899 to 1901, he was physician-extraordinary to Queen Victoria, being present at her deathbed. He continued to hold court appointments under Edward VII and also under George V. In 1901 he was created a baronet and, later the same year, was appointed KCVO. Barlow was a lifelong teetotaller and, from 1923 to 1930, he was president of the National Temperance League. Barlow's later life was laden with honours. He was elected FRS in 1909 and president of the Royal College of Physicians the following year, serving until 1914. In 1913 he presided at the Seventeenth International Medical Congress, held in London. In retirement Barlow spent more time at his country home, Boswells, near Wendover in Buckinghamshire. He continued to travel, at home and abroad, accompanied by his surviving daughter, Helen (1887–1975), who never married. He died at 10 Wimpole Street on 12 January 1945, aged ninety-nine.

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