Oscar Clayton
Sir Oscar Moore Passey Clayton (10 March 1816 – 27 January 1892) was a British surgeon, courtier, and socialite. He was Surgeon-in-Ordinary to Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, Extra Surgeon-in-Ordinary to the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, and Surgeon to the Metropolitan Police and other bodies. Early life and family Clayton was the eldest son of James Clayton, of Bedford Square, Bloomsbury, by his marriage to Caroline Kent, of Kingston upon Thames. The elder Clayton was also a surgeon and in 1835 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London. Clayton was educated at Bruce Castle School, University College, London, and the Middlesex Hospital. In 1837 he became a member of the Society of Apothecaries and on 11 May 1838 a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. His younger brother, Edward Burley Clayton, also became a surgeon. He died in 1851 from severe injuries caused when a horse he was riding in Park Lane collided with a cab. Their father died in 1854. Career After completing his medical education, Clayton first practiced from his father's address, 3, Percy Street, off Bedford Square. In 1842 he was elected, like his father, a Fellow of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, and on 14 March 1843 read a paper to the Society concerning seventeen cases of a hacking cough which he had observed since 1841 as surgeon to the St Pancras School for Female Children, a charity school at St Pancras, London. This was published in that year's volume of Medico-Chirurgical Transactions under the title Some Account of an Hysterical Affection of the Vocal Apparatus, with several cases. On 13 October 1853 Clayton was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was still at the Percy Street address in 1859, but most of his later years in practice were spent at Number 5, Harley Street. In his middle years he became a "fashionable" society doctor and was the personal physician of two of the sons of Queen Victoria. In 1868, he was appointed as Extra Surgeon-in-Ordinary to the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, and Surgeon-in-Ordinary to his brother, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. This caused the Medical Press and Circular to comment acidly: Despite the misgivings of the medical press, in 1872 the Prince of Wales fell sick at Scarborough with typhoid fever, and Clayton correctly diagnosed the illness. Clayton was always credited with the Prince's recovery. Clayton also became Surgeon to the Metropolitan Police, the London Philanthropic Society, and the charity of St George the Martyr, Southwark. His patients included Lord Randolph Churchill, who shortly after the birth of his son Winston made repeated visits to Clayton for "an undisclosed ailment". Frank Harris later claimed that this was syphilis. In 1885, under the heading A STAR IN THE MEDICAL FIRMAMENT, the Midland Medical Miscellany reported: On one occasion, after Clayton had successfully treated Princess Louise, Sir James Reid, Queen Victoria's personal physician, was angry when he