Archibald Billing

Archibald Billing FRS (10 January 1791 – 2 September 1881) was an English physician and writer on art.

Biography Billing was the son of Theodore Billing of Cromlyn, in the county of Dublin. He entered Trinity College Dublin, in 1807, graduated A.B. 1811, M.B. 1814, M.D. 1818, and was incorporated M.D. at Oxford on his Dublin degree on 22 October 1818. He says himself that he spent seven years in clinical study at Irish, British, and continental hospitals before he sought a fee, but about 1815 must have settled in London, was admitted candidate (member) of the College of Physicians on 22 December 1818, and fellow on 22 December 1819. He was censor of the college in 1823, and councillor from 1852 to 1855.

Billing was long connected with the London Hospital, to which foundation, after having been engaged in teaching there since 1817, he was elected physician on 2 July 1822. In 1823 he began a course of clinical lectures. He ceased to lecture in 1836, and resigned the post of physician on 4 June 1845. On the foundation of the university of London in 1836, Billing was invited to become a member of the senate, and occupied an influential position on that body for many years. He was also for a considerable time examiner in medicine. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and an active member of other scientific and medical societies.

As a musical amateur, Billing on 12 May 1833 hosted in his home a trio of Mendelssohn, Paganini and the cellist Robert Lindley.