Sir William Henry Bennett, KCVO, FRCS (1852 – 24 December 1931)[1] was a British surgeon.
Bennett was a Wiltshireman, the son of William Francis Bennett, of Chilmark.
He held several administrative posts in medical establishments, including at St George's Hospital, where he was a senior surgeon.
Bennett introduced London doctors to massage as a treatment modality for new fractures in 1898[2] and established a department of massage at St. George´s. However, his most important contribution to medical science was a paper in which he introduced the surgical procedure of posterior rhizotomy for the relief of spasmodic pain in a lower extremity.[3]
He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) in July 1901,[4] for services rendered to sick and wounded returning from the Boer War, South Africa, 1900–02, for which he was publicly thanked by Lord Roberts.[1]
The following year, on 8 May 1902, he was appointed a Knight of Grace of the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem in England (KStJ).[5] In 1904, he was selected to be among the honorary medical staff at King Edward VII's Hospital for Officers.[6]
During the War 1914–1919 he relinquished all private affairs to take up work with the British Red Cross and the Order of St John.[1]
Bennett married first, in 1882, Isabel Dickinson (died 1911), daughter of Thomas Dickinson.[7] After his first wife´s death he married, in 1914, Gladys Florence Stewart Hartigan, daughter of Rev. Allen S. Hartigan.[1]
He died on 24 December 1931 aged 79[1] and is buried in Putney Vale Cemetery, south west London.[8]
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