Royal College of Surgeons of England
Excerpt from "Parr's Lives of the Fellows"
Educated for the profession of architecture at University College, where he gained prizes. He even practised as an architect, exhibited studies at the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, and obtained honourable mention for a design of a building to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. In this year however, he decided to abandon architecture for medicine. Entering as a student at St Thomas's Hospital, he carried off prize after prize-the descriptive Anatomy Prize, the Anatomy Prize (1854), the Medicine Prize, the Clinical Medicine President's Prize and the Clinical Medicine Treasurer's Prize (1855). After qualifying in 1855, he volunteered as a surgeon in the Crimean War. he was in time to be present at the siege of Sebastopol and to see a vast amount of practical surgery in the most arduous circumstances at the hospitals at Scutari. During a large part of his war services he was attached to the French Army, which was extremely badly provided with surgical aid, and there is no doubt that under the strenuous nature of the duties which devolved upon him, Allingham gained the courage and sense of responsibility which marked him out as a successful operating surgeon from the beginning of his career. After his return home, he was Surgical Tutor, Demonstrator of Anatomy, and then Surgical Registrar at St Thomas's Hospital. He set up in practice in 1863 as a consultant at 36 Finsbury Square EC, but removed to Grosvenor Street where he soon became a well-known authority on diseases of the rectum and enjoyed a large practice. In 1871, he published his classical book on Diseases of the Rectum. It was accepted at once as an authoritative and inclusive work, though some surgeons differed from the author on points of technique. William Allingham was not attached to the staff of any of the great London hospitals possessing a medical school, but was for many years Surgeon to the Great Northern Central Hospital and to St Mark's Hospital for Fistula and Diseases of the Rectum. He was also Consulting Surgeon to the Farringdon General Dispensary and to the Surgical Aid Society, of which, together with some of his relatives and others, he was one of the founders in 1862. He was a member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1884-1886 and retired from practice in 1894. Allingham was one of the first surgeons in England to specialize in the treatment of diseases of the rectum, out of which he made a considerable fortune. He was kindly, generous and hospitable. After his retirement, he lived for some time in St Leonards and then at Worthing, where he died on February 4th 1908. He married twice (1) Miss Christiana Cooke by whom he had six children-four sons and two daughters. The eldest son was Herbert William Allingham. Of his two daughters, both married medical men; the elder, who afterwards became Mrs Chevallier Tayler, having been first the wife of Mr Charles Cotes of St George's; the younger was married to Claud E Woakes. (2) Miss D H Hayles, who nursed him through a severe illness, who, like Mr Herbert William Allingham pre-deceased the subject of this memoir. William Allingham appears in the portrait group of the Council by Jamyn Brooks (1884).
There follows a full list of publications.