William Wagstaffe

Born in 1685, William Wagstaffe was an English physician associated with St Bartholomew's Hospital. He also became a Fellow of the Royal Society, showing the standing he achieved in the medical world of his time.

Wagstaffe wrote on a range of subjects, not only medicine but also religious and political controversies. That mix of scientific work and public debate gives his writing a distinctly early-18th-century character: learned, combative, and engaged with the wider issues of the day.

He died in 1725. A later volume of his miscellaneous works, published with a life and account of his writings, suggests that contemporaries saw him as more than a practicing doctor: he was also a writer whose ideas were worth preserving.