Born in London, Edward Ormerod was the son of George Ormerod of Tidenham, Gloucestershire, the historian of Cheshire, and the grandson of John Latham, President of the Royal College of Physicians (1813-20). As a boy, he was at Rugby under Arnold. He was a student at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital from 1838 until being admitted, in 1840, to Caius College, Cambridge, where he won both classical and science scholarships. After graduating as M.B. in 1846, he returned to St. Bartholomew’s as a demonstrator of morbid anatomy. When his health broke down after a year’s work, he started to practise in Brighton and in 1850 he became physician to the Brighton and Hove Dispensary. Three years later, he was made physician to the Sussex County Hospital. In 1867 and 1868 he was an examiner for the M.B. degree at Cambridge. Pathology was his main interest. He wrote a paper on fatty degeneration of the heart and made several contributions on allied subjects to medical journals. In 1851 he delivered the Goulstonian Lectures at the Royal College of Physicians. A man of considerable versatility and industry, if retiring in disposition, he published a book, in 1868, on the habits of British wasps, which was commended by entomologists and paved the way for his election as an F.R.S. in 1872. He married, firstly, in 1853 Mary Olivia Porter, and, secondly, in 1856 Maria Millett, by whom he had six children. He died at Brighton.

G H Brown

[Lancet, 1873; St. Bart.'s Hospital Reports, 1873, ix, 1; D.N.B., xlii, 258; Biog.Hist.of Caius College, ii, 253]