Walter Cheadle was born at Colne, Lancashire, the son of James Cheadle, vicar of Bingley, Yorkshire. He was educated at Bingley Grammar School and Caius College, Cambridge. He took his B.A. degree in 1859 and would have received his rowing blue in the same year but for a family bereavement. Having graduated as M.B. from St. George’s Hospital two years later, he accompanied Viscount Milton, in 1862, on an expedition to explore a route through the Rocky Mountains, and, on their return, collaborated with his leader in writing an account of their adventures called The North-West Passage by Land, which proved immensely popular. Cheadle’s first appointment, in 1866, was as assistant physician to St. Mary’s Hospital, where he lectured on pharmacology, pathology, medicine and clinical medicine and was dean of the School for four years. In 1869 he was made assistant physician at Great Ormond Street, and at both Hospitals he eventually attained consulting rank. He acquired a considerable reputation as a consultant on children’s diseases and did pioneer work on the artificial feeding of infants and on rheumatism. Himself at his best as a clinical teacher of senior and postgraduate students, he endowed the Cheadle prize and medal at St. Mary’s for proficiency in clinical medicine. He advocated the admission of women to the medical profession at a time when it was bitterly opposed and was one of the first lecturers at the London Medical School for Women. A Censor of the Royal College of Physicians, he delivered the Lumleian Lectures in 1900. He married, first, in 1866 Anne, daughter of W. Murgatroyd of Bingley, by whom he had four sons, and secondly, Emily Mansei Mansel, Inspector of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Institute for Nurses, daughter of Robert Mansel of Rothbury.

G H Brown

[Lancet, 1910; B.M.J., 1910; Biog.Hist.of Caius College, ii, 323]