Hewson family.

The patriarch of this family was William Hewson (1739–1774, APS 1769). He was a London based surgeon and anatomist, chiefly known for his contributions to hematology. He was married to Mary (Polly) Stevenson (1739-1795), who had been a close friend of Benjamin Franklin ever since her mother had been his landlady during his stay in London in the 1750s. After her husband’s death the widow and her three children relocated from London to Philadelphia. One of their sons was Thomas Tickell (1773-1848, APS 1801), a physician, professor of Comparative Anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania, and president of the College of Physicians.

William Hewson was apprenticed to his father, who was also a surgeon. He then studied under Richard Lambert at the Newcastle Infirmary. In 1759 he went to London to attend the lectures and classes of the physicist Hugh Smith as well as the anatomists and obstetricians William Hunter and Colin Mackenzie. In addition, Hewson studied at St. Thomas’s and Guy’s hospitals.

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