# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Paddy, William

1904 Errata appended.
​PADDY, Sir WILLIAM, M.D. (1554–1634), physician, was born in London, and entered the Merchant Taylors' School in 1569, having among his schoolfellows Lancelot Andrewes [q. v.], Giles Tomson (afterwards bishop of Gloucester), and Thomas Dove (afterwards bishop of Peterborough). In 1571 he entered as a commoner at St. John's College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in July 1573. On 21 July 1589 he graduated M.D. at Leyden, and was incorporated on that degree at Oxford on 22 Oct. 1591. He was elected a fellow of his college, where he was contemporary with his friend Dr. Matthew Gwinne [q. v.] He was examined at the College of Physicians of London on 23 Dec. 1589, admitted a licentiate on 9 May 1590, and a fellow on 25 Sept. 1591. He was elected a censor in 1595, and again from 1597 to 1600, and was four times president of the college—1609, 1610, 1611, and 1618. His only published work appeared in 1603, a copy of verses lamenting the death of Queen Elizabeth, beginning with the unmelodious line 'Terminus huc rerum meus huc me terminus urget;' and after praise of her successor, of whom he says 'solus eris Solomon,' ending with the wish 'Sic tamen ut medica sis sine, salvus, ope.' James I appointed him his physician in the first year of his reign, and knighted him at Windsor on 9 July 1603 (Metcalfe, Book of Knights). When James I was at Oxford on 29 Aug. 1605, Paddy argued before him against two medical theses, 'Whether the morals of nurses are imbibed by infants with the milk,' and 'Whether smoking tobacco is favourable to health.' A manuscript note of Sir Theodore Mayerne [q. v.] shows that the former was a point on which James had some personal feeling, and the latter expressed one of his best-known prejudices; so it may easily be supposed that Paddy obtained the royal applause. In 1614 the College of Physicians appointed him to plead the immunity of the college from arms-bearing before the lord mayor, Sir Thomas Middleton, and the recorder, Sir Henry Montagu. He spoke before the court on 4 Oct. 1614, and pointed out the nature of the acts 14 and 32 Henry VIII, which state the privileges of physicians. A point as to surgeons having arisen, he also maintained that 'physicians are by their science chirurgeons without further examination' (Goodall, Coll. of Physicians, p. 379). The recorder decided in favour of the claim of the college. Paddy attained to a large practice, and enjoyed the friendship of Sir Theodore Mayerne and of Dr. Baldwin Hamey the elder. Mayerne praises him in his preface to his edition of Thomas Muffett's [see Muffett, Thomas] 'Insectorum Theatrum,' published in 1634. On 7 April 1620, with Matthew Gwinne, he was appointed a commissioner for garbling tobacco (Rymer, Foedera, xvii. 190). It is to this office that Dr. Raphael Thorius [q. v.] alludes in the eulogium on Paddy, with which his poem 'De Paeto seu Tabaco' (London, 1626) begins:
Tu Paddseo fave, nee enim praestantior alter
Morbifugae varias vires agnoscere plantae.
He was attached to his fellow-collegian William Laud [q. v.], and when the puritans expressed disapproval of a sermon preached by Laud at St. Mary's, Oxford, and persecuted him in the university, Paddy called on the Earl of Dorset, then chancellor of Oxford, and spoke to him in praise of Laud's character and learning. He sat in parliament as member for Thetford, Norfolk, in 1604-11. When in March 1625 James I was attacked by the acute illness, complicating gout, of which he died, Paddy was sent for to Theobalds, and, thinking the king's case desperate, warned him of the end, which ensued two days later. In Paddy's copy of the 'Book of Common Prayer' (ed. 1615), preserved in St. John's College, Oxford, there is a manuscript note which records the king's last solemn profession of faith. Paddy died in London on 22 Dec. 1634. He was a munificent benefactor of his college at Oxford, to which he gave an organ, 1,800l. for the improvement of the choir, and 1,000l. towards the commons, as well as many volumes to the ​library. He gave 20l. to the College of Physicians. His tomb is in the chapel of St. John's College, and the college possesses a portrait of him in his robes as a doctor.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 100; Hamey's Bustorum aliquot Reliquiæ, manuscript in library of College of Physicians of London; Sloane MS. 2149, in Brit. Mus.; Clode's Memorials of the Guild of Merchant Taylors, London, 1875; Wilson's History of Merchant Taylors' School, 2 vols. London, 1812 and 1814, in which his poem is printed, p. 602; Wood's Athenæ Oxon.; Foster's Alumni Oxon.]
N. M.
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.213 N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 35 | i | 38-39 | Paddy, Sir William: omit elected a fellow of his college, where he was |
| | | 39 | after contemporary insert at St. John's |
| | | 40 | after [q. v.] insert and for many years occupied rooms in college. |