William Banting

Born around December 1796 and died on March 16, 1878, William Banting was an English undertaker in London whose name became unexpectedly famous far beyond his trade. He is remembered less for his business than for writing Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public in 1863, a short work that described his own experience with obesity and weight loss.

Banting wrote the pamphlet after following dietary advice from the surgeon William Harvey. In it, he described cutting back on foods rich in starch and sugar and presented the results in a plain, practical voice that many readers found convincing. The booklet spread widely, and "banting" became a popular term for dieting in the nineteenth century.

What keeps Banting interesting is that he was not a physician or scientist, but an ordinary person writing from experience. That mix of self-help, personal testimony, and diet advice gave his work an unusually long afterlife, and it still appears in histories of nutrition and weight-loss culture.