Willoughby Wade was born at Bray, Wicklow, the eldest son of Edward Michael Wade, vicar of Holy Trinity, Derby, and a descendant of General Wade. He was educated at Brighton, Rugby and Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated as B.A. in 1849 and M.B. in 1851, and served an apprenticeship with a surgeon at Derby. In 1855 he settled in practice at Birmingham, where he had already filled junior appointments at the General Hospital. He was appointed to the staff of the General Dispensary in 1857 and to the Queen’s Hospital in 1860, soon afterwards becoming professor of the practice of physic and clinical medicine at Queen’s College. He relinquished these appointments in 1865, however, on election as physician to the General Hospital, which office he held till 1892. Wade’s most important services were given to the B.M.A, as a member of the Council from 1864, chairman of its Scientific Grants Committee (1880-84), treasurer (1882-85) and president of the Birmingham meeting (1890). He held these offices at a time when the Association’s prosperity, membership and influence were steadily growing; and it was on his proposal that research scholarships were endowed by the Association. Although he did not exert himself unduly in practice, he was a man of solid ability and strong personality. He retired in 1898 to a villa near Florence which became a centre of cultured hospitality. In 1905 he moved to Rome, where he died. Wade married in 1880 his cousin Augusta Frances, daughter of Sir John Power, second baronet, of Kilfane; there were no children of the marriage.

G H Brown

[Lancet, 1906; B.M.J., 1906; D.N.B., 2nd Suppl., iii, 571; Al.Dubl., 845]