Sir Thomas Barlow: Physician to Queen Victoria and Scurvy Expert

Thomas was married to Ada with whom he had five children, his eldest son, Sir James Alan Noel Barlow married Charles Darwin’s granddaughter and became the Principal Private Treasurer for Ramsey Macdonald, the first Labour Party Prime Minister. He had two other sons; one died fighting in the first world war, and his youngest daughter Gertrude, died in infancy.

Thomas started his further education at Owens Collage in Manchester, winning many prizes in scientific fields. He then went on to study medicine at University College London and qualified in 1871. Thomas was a well-respected and educated Physician but was also known for his ‘shrewd Lancashire commonsense’ (G H Brown, 2019). He was said to be a caring and kind doctor, but his fame came from a discovery relating to scurvy in 1883. Barlow found that scurvy in infants was exactly the same as it was in adults. There had been some confusion at the time between rickets and scurvy in children, which had prompted Barlow’s research. In 1894 he gave a lecture about the disease which can be accessed here; it became known as Barlow’s Disease.

Scurvy is a deficiency of vitamin C occurring from a poor diet. In the Victorian era, scurvy was a major killer of sailors, sometimes killing over half the crewmen aboard before landing in dock. It was also prevalent in impoverished children due to a poor diet, lacking in fresh fruit and vegetables. This was often associated with rickets in children, when it was in fact scurvy.

Barlow was eight months from being 100 years old when he died in 1945, and in his obituary, it was said he was still robust and sound of mind almost until the end. Barlow was an extraordinary man and Physician. He was also Queen Victoria’s doctor and was present when she passed away. He also attended on the next two Kings. Barlow was knighted in 1901 and became a Baronet the following year. By all accounts Sir Thomas Barlow was an extraordinary man, physician and Boltonian.