Frederic Bateman was born at Norwich, the son of John Bateman, who came of an old Norwich family. He began his medical training at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and continued it in Paris, where he took the diploma of Officier de Santé in 1846, and at University College, London, where he qualified in 1849. Having served in a house appointment at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in 1851, he entered into partnership with a general practitioner in the city. After several years, however, he turned to consulting practice. He was physician to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital from 1864 to 1895, and also belonged to the staffs of the Bethel Hospital, the Eastern Counties Asylum at Colchester, the Jenny Lind Infirmary and the Norfolk and Norwich Eye Infirmary. He gave special attention to brain diseases, and his best-known work, a pioneer treatise on Aphasia (1870), was awarded the Alvarenga prize of the Paris Academy of Medicine.

Bateman took a full part in civic affairs. He sat in the city council and in 1872 held the office of sheriff of Norwich, which his father had held before him. He was knighted in 1892. He was a member of many foreign learned societies, and a fine French linguist, well read in French literature and medicine. He married in 1855 Emma Brownfield, daughter of John Gooderson of Heigham Fieldshouse, and had three sons and three daughters. He died at Norwich.

G H Brown

[Lancet, 1904; B.M.J., 1904]