William Orange

Dr William OrangeWilliam Orange (24 October 1833 – 31 December 1916) was an English physician and medical superintendent of Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.

He was born in Torquay where his Huguenot-descended father John was an Independent Baptist minister. After an apprenticeship to a physician in Berkshire, he qualified from St Thomas's Hospital in 1856 before accompanying a patient on a long tour of Europe. That trip enabled him to learn Italian, German and French and to gain his medical doctorate from the University of Heidelberg before taking up his first official post in the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum.

He was appointed deputy superintendent of Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum in 1862 and succeeded John Meyer as superintendent in 1870. He also acted as a medical advisor to the Home Office on the sanity of criminals condemned to death, such as Christiana Edmunds. In 1872 he married Florence Elizabeth Hart, with whom he had four daughters and a son. He became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1878.

Orange was president of the Medico-Psychological Society 1883–1884, giving an address on the law and insanity.