Walking with the Ancestors - William Withering

In The Beginning

Withering began his education as a pupil of Rev Henry Wood, the curate of the parish church at nearby High Ercall, to whom he later dedicated his university thesis. However, the source of his initial medical training is less certain. It could have been that he was apprenticed to his father Edmund, who was an apothecary/surgeon in Wellington but this seems unlikely as it was usually the practice for apprentices to eventually become apothecaries themselves, which young William did not. Under the circumstances, it seems more probable that he became a pupil of his uncle, Dr Brooke Hector of Lichfield. In any case, it is clear Withering excelled as a student and in 1762 he left Wellington to study medicine at Edinburgh University, qualifying as an MD four years later.