John Wootten (1799–1847)
John Wootten was the third of the twelve children of Richard Wootten of Oxford and his wife Ann Dickinson of Twycross, Leicestershire. He was baptised at St Martin's Church at Carfax on 4 October 1799.
His father Richard was a mercer and haberdasher with a shop near Carfax, who was also involved in brewing and banking and served as Mayor of Oxford in 1815/16 and 1834/5. John grew up over his father's High Street shop, and was already at the University of Oxford when his family moved to Iffley in 1818.
There was a medical tradition in the family, as his father's younger brother, John Clarke Wootten (1768–1798) had been an apothecary and man-midwife. John Wootten never knew his uncle, however, as he died of consumption at Iffley the year before he was born.
Wootten matriculated from Lincoln College on 27 March 1816 at the age of 16, and obtained a First in Mathematics and Physics at Balliol College in 1820. He attended Daubeny's lectures in 1822/3, and in 1824 took the B.M. with the licence to practise, and in 1826 the D.M.
By January 1830 Dr Wootten had moved into 40 Broad Street, and on 1 February he was elected Physician to the Radcliffe Infirmary. He inserted the customary notice in Jackson's Oxford Journal of 6 February 1830 thanking the governors for his appointment.
During the Oxford cholera epidemic of 1832, Dr Wootten shared with Dr Kidd the responsibilities of a consultant.
In the 1830s the Latimer family of Headington House often consulted Dr Wootten about their daughter Jane, who suffered from fits. Although Wootten was well known for being driven around in a carriage and pair, it is noteworthy that the Latimers nearly always had to drive down to Broad Street, and he only came up to Headington once in order to bleed Jane. On 8 August 1836 Mrs Latimer wrote in her diary of an appointment that the doctor failed to keep:
Breakfasted early, and soon after set off with Mrs Cleoburey (who I insisted should go down with me for the purpose of consulting Dr Wooten [sic]), Mary, Caroline & Louisa, the latter of whom was likewise consulting Dr Wooten, drove to Oxford to meet Dr Wooten by appointment, but after driving about for more than three hours, upon ringing I had the mortification to find he had forgotten his appointment and was gone out of town. I regretted it very much on account of dear Mrs Cleoburey, whom I thought very ill, we returned home to dinner, worked, read.
Mrs Cleoburey, Mrs Latimer's sister, was also often seen by Dr Wootten in the 1830s: she was the wife of William Cleoburey, who had been Surgeon of the Radcliffe Infirmary since 1822.
In 1838/9 Wootten expanded his home and practice at 40 Broad Street by buying the Duke of York pub at No. 41 next door and combining the two houses.
G.C. Brodrick wrote of Dr Wootten:
In the Long Vacation of 1842 Dr. Wootten, then in the forefront of Oxford medical practice, came to dine with us in the Common Room (Merton). Dr. W. was a man wholly devoted to his practice and knowing nothing of the pleasures of the table. Mr. Griffiths had ordered a most ample dinner and according to the only code of hospitality known to his generation he felt bound to urge his guest to eat five times more than his wont. The generous host was vexed by the guest's frequent refusals. He broke out: "You have made a most admirable fast, Dr. Wootten." "Oh! Mr. G., I am bound to practice what I preach." "And pray, sir, what do you preach?" I preach, Mr. G., eat and leave off hungry." "Eat and leave off hungry, Dr. W.? Only to think that I should have lived so far into this nineteenth century before I learnt that the object of eating was to leave off hungry! But," he added, in a changed voice, "Dr. W., why not wash and leave off dirty?"
Wootten died on 26 August 1847, and was buried at Iffley, where his father still lived. The notice of his death in Jackson's Oxford Journal two days later read:
DIED. on Thursday last, in the 48th year of his age, much beloved, John Wootten, Esq., M.D. of Balliol college, one of the physicians of the Radcliffe Infirmary.
In the next week's paper, there was an advertisement for a new Physician to the Radcliffe Infirmary to replace him, and Henry Acland was appointed to the post. He also took over Wootten's Broad Street practice.