Dr Charles John Hare
(1818-1898)
29 August 1861
Voume 5, page 29, sitting number 5591.
[The sitter is identified only as ‘Dr Hare’ in the Silvy daybooks. Although there are other possibilities, this is probably the successful London physician Charles John Hare, who for many years lived next door to Claridge’s on Brook Street in Mayfair.]
Born in or about 1818 at Leeds in Yorkshire, Charles John Hare was the only son of Samuel Hare, who, according to the 1851 census, was a MRCS and a ‘consulting surgeon.’
He was educated privately in Leeds and at Caius College, Cambridge; he was a medical student at University College, London, and in Paris. Between 1863 and 1870 he was the Professor of Clinical Medicine at University College Hospital. In 1866 he was President of the Medical Society of London.
On 3 March 1863 at St George’s Hanover Square he married Catherine Westhead, youngest daughter of merchant Edward Westhead of Croston Tower, Cheshire. Their marriage produced two sons and three daughters.
When the census was taken in 1871 he described himself as ‘Physician, MD Cantab, FRCS London’ and a ‘Landowner (over 1700 acres).’
Charles John Hare died, aged 80, on 15 December 1898 at 15 Berkeley House, Manchester Square, London. He left an estate valued at £75,397.
‘Dr Charles John Hare, who has died at his residence, Berkeley House, Manchester-square, in the eighty-first year of his age, had a very distinguished professional career. He was consulting physician to University College Hospital and to many of the local Dispensaries in the North and West of London, Assessor to the Regius Professor of Physics and Examiner in Medicine to the University of Cambridge, and was Delegate from the Royal Medical and Chirurgical and Pathological Societies to the International Medical Congress at Philadelphia in 1876, and of the first-named Society to the Rome International Medical Congress in 1894. The funeral takes place tomorrow’ (Morning Post, 19 December 1898).
According to a short biography on the website of Royal College of Physicians, ‘Hare was a man of robust health, fond of travelling, an able financier, and a meticulous correspondent. He had the engaging habit of drawing a small clock-face at the top of his letters, the hands of which indicated the exact time at which they had been written.’
According to his obituary in the British Medical Journal (24 December 1898), ‘ Dr Hare was a tall, upright figure, and had every appearance of robust health; whilst his courtly manners, perennial good spirits, and wide knowledge of men and countries made him a persona grata in Metropolitan medical circles. […] He possessed ample means, and contributed largely to medical charities, which have lost in him a never-failing friend and supporter.’