William Henry Corfield

William Henry Corfield (14 December 1843 – 26 August 1903) was an English public health physician. Appointed Professor of Hygiene and Public Health at University College London in 1869, Corfield had a major influence on public health and household sanitation in Victorian England before there was extensive knowledge of bacteriology and a clear understanding of infectious disease transmission. He was also an early advocate of land filtration and sewage farms.

Life

William Henry Corfield was born at Shrewsbury on 14 December 1843. He was the eldest son of Thomas Corfield, a chemist, and Jane Corfield (née Brown). He was educated at Cheltenham Grammar School; he was a precocious scholar and obtained a Demyship to study Natural Science at Magdalen College, Oxford in March 1861 and matriculated on 12 October 1861 at the age of 17. In 1863 he took a first class in Mathematics at Moderations. In the same year he was chosen to accompany Charles Daubeny, geologist and professor of chemistry at Oxford to examine the volcanoes in Montbrison in France. In 1864 he obtained a first class degree in mathematics. In the following year he took up the Sheppard Medical Fellowship at Pembroke College, Oxford. In 1866 he was awarded the Burdett-Coutts Geological Scholarship and was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society. He also won the Radcliffe Travelling Fellowship which enabled him to visit academic institutions in Europe. At Oxford he was influenced by Sir Henry W. Acland and by George Rolleston to become interested in hygiene and sanitary sciences. He studied medicine at University College Hospital, including visits to France, Italy and Sicily and graduated as a Bachelor of Medicine at Oxford in 1868. While in France he studied under Jules Béhier, Germain Sée, Alfred Hardy, as well as attending Bourchardat's lectures on hygiene in Paris. He also studied in Lyon where he made a special study of the remains of the aqueducts of ancient Lugdunum.