Description
HENRY HALFORD autograph official bulletin reporting on the final illness of King William IV, Signed (to which the names of William Frederick Chambers and David Davies are also appended).
Sir Henry Halford, previously known as Henry Vaughan. British physician and President of the Royal College of Surgeons for 24 years.
An official bulletin in the hand of Sir Henry Halford. Windsor Castle. June 18th 1837.
"The symptoms of the King's disease have not increas'd but His Majesty is more feeble today. Henry Halford, William Frederick Chambers, David Davies."
20.25 x 7.5 cms (8 x 3 inches). Laid down on old paper piece with some mounting damage to verso, else very good.
This was the penultimate dispatch from Windsor Castle prior to the King's death which occurred on June 20th 1837, whereupon Queen Victoria acceded to the throne. The text of this bulletin was printed in several journals and newspapers, including the Spectator. Henry Halford, who with Chambers and Davies, treated the King in his final illness, had been physician to GEORGE III and the Prince Regent. It was Henry Halford who examined the body of Charles I when it was discovered during building work at St George's Chapel, Windsor and the Prince Regent presented Halford with the vertebra bearing the marks of the executioner's axe.
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