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

​HEY, WILLIAM (1736–1819), surgeon, third son of Richard Hey of Pudsey, near Leeds, drysalter, and of his wife Mary Simpson, daughter of a surgeon in Leeds, was born on 23 Aug. 1736. His brothers John and Richard Hey are separately noticed. At the age of four an accident deprived him of the sight of his right eye. The left eye remained perfect till advanced age. While at school at Heath, near Wakefield, Hey acquired a taste for science, and at fourteen was apprenticed to a surgeon at Leeds named Dawson. Between 1757 and 1759 he studied at St. George's Hospital, London, and became so skilful as a surgeon that as soon as he set up in practice at Leeds he treated the most serious cases, performing lithotomy, it is said, three times in his first year. In 1767 he was active in promoting the foundation of the Leeds Infirmary, being the only medical man on the building committee. From 1773 to 1812 he was senior surgeon. About 1769 Hey formed a close friendship with Dr. Priestley, who then lived at Leeds, and Priestley proposed Hey for the fellowship of the Royal Society in 1775, writing to Hey on his election: ‘I wish I could say that one of the members in ten had equal pretensions to it.’ Hey replied to some of Priestley's theological tracts, but their friendship was not impaired by their religious differences. In 1778 Hey was lamed by a blow in mounting his horse. In 1783 he became president of the first Leeds Literary and Philosophical Society, and read numerous papers before it between that year and 1786. In 1800, 1803, 1805, and 1809 he gave courses of anatomical lectures on bodies of executed criminals at the Leeds Infirmary, to which he gave the profits. He resigned his surgeoncy there in 1812. His second son, William Hey (see below), was his successor. Always of deeply religious temperament, he was a strong methodist till 1781, when he joined the church of England. His chief recreation was music. He was twice mayor of Leeds, in 1787–8 and 1801–2, and in that capacity so severely denounced profanity and vice that the populace burnt him in effigy, and threatened him with personal violence. He died 23 March 1819, aged 82. His portrait was placed in the boardroom of the Leeds Infirmary, and an excellent bust of him by Bullock was executed for Mr. Gott of Armley, near Leeds. A statue by Chantrey was erected in the infirmary by public subscription. His portrait, engraved from a painting by Allen, which precedes his ‘Life,’ indicates keen observation and discriminating benevolence. Hey married, in 1761, Alice, daughter of Robert Banks of Craven, by whom he had eleven children.
Hey was an excellent surgical operator. He introduced valuable improvements into the treatment of hernia, of cataract, of dislocations, and other surgical diseases. He first fully described and named the growth called ‘fungus hæmatodes.’ The name of ‘Hey's operation’ is given to a mode (devised by him) of partial amputation of the foot in front of the tarso-metatarsal joint. His proofs of the transmission of venereal disease to the fœtus in utero were convincing.
Hey wrote, besides several papers in ‘Medical Observations and Inquiries:’ 1. ‘Observations on the Blood,’ 1779, controverting Hewson's opinions on inflammation. 2. ‘Practical Observations in Surgery,’ 1803; 2nd edition, 1810; 3rd edition, 1814, both with additions. 3. ‘Facts illustrating the Effects of the Venereal Disease on the Fœtus in utero,’ ‘Medico-Chirurgical Transactions,’ 1816, vol. vii. 4. ‘Tracts and Essays, Moral and Theological, including a Defence of the Doctrines of the Divinity of Christ, and of the Atonement,’ 1822; a collection of tracts several of which were separately published in his lifetime.
William Hey, the second son (1772–1844), ​ was a notable surgeon, and wrote a ‘Treatise on Puerperal Fever,’ 1815. His son, also William Hey (1796–1875), was surgeon to the Leeds Infirmary from 1830 to 1851, and was one of the founders of the Leeds School of Medicine, in which he lectured on surgery from 1831 to 1857 (see Brit. Med. Journ. 1875, i. 763).
[Life of William Hey, 1822, by John Pearson, F.R.S., a most diffuse and tedious work; Life and Writings of William Hey, by Benjamin Bell in Edinb. Med. Journ. June 1867, xii. 1061–80.]
G. T. B.