Born at Whiligh, Sussex, the son of Admiral George Stanley Bosanquet and his wife Caroline Susan Courthope of Whiligh, Cecil Bosanquet was a King’s scholar at Eton and distinguished himself at New College, Oxford, by taking a first in classical moderations in 1887 and a first in Greats in 1889. He held a fellowship at New College from 1890 to 1897, during which time he studied medicine at Oxford and Charing Cross Hospital, proceeding to both B.M. and D.M. degrees in the latter year. Bosanquet remained at Charing Cross to become pathologist in 1900, assistant physician in 1903, physician in 1913, and eventually consulting physician, and he lectured there on practical medicine and clinical medicine. He was elected also as assistant physician (1900), physician (1913) and consulting physician to the Brompton Hospital, and originated its Reports in 1931. He served, too, on the staff of the London Lock Hospital and, for a short period, on that of the Victoria Hospital for Children. He was Goulstonian Lecturer in 1905 and a Censor of the Royal College of Physicians. During the War of 1914-1918 he was first attached to the staff of the 4th London General Hospital and afterwards to the 44th General Hospital in India, becoming consulting physician to the North-West Frontier Force in 1919.

Bosanquet edited the tenth edition of Green's Pathology and Morbid Anatomy in 1905 and three later editions. In 1937 he published a book entitled Meditatio Medici: A Doctor's Philosophy of Life, which bore evidence of the scholarly attributes of its author. By nature a philosopher and student, Bosanquet, with his keen intellect, his critical outlook, and his reticence about his private affairs, was suited more to the experimental than to the clinical side of medicine. Nevertheless, his disinterestedness, intellectual honesty and modest charm were by no means incongruous on hospital staffs. He died in London.

G H Brown

[Lancet, 1941; B.M.J., 1941; Biog. Details left by Dr. Bosanquet, in R.C.P. Library]