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Frederick George Dawtrey Drewitt was born at Burpham, Surrey, on the 29 February 1848. He was educated at Winchester College before entering Christ Church College, Oxford. He graduated with a natural science degree in 1871, and then began his medical studies at St George's Hospital, London. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1876, and took house appointments at St George's, the Hospital for Sick Children at Great Ormond Street, London, and the Belgrave Hospital for Children.
He graduated MA and BM from Oxford in 1878, and the following year became a member of the Royal College of Physicians. Drewitt held honorary appointments at the Victoria Hospital for Children, 1881-87, and the West London Hospital, 1882-1902. He qualified MD from Oxford in 1883. In 1888 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
Drewitt's private income enabled him to retire early. He then devoted himself chiefly to the study of birds and flowers. He had a range of interests however, which were reflected in his publications. In 1907 he wrote Bombay in the Days of George IV, and in 1922 The Romance of the Apothecaries' Garden, which reached a third edition. His other publications included The Latin Names of Common Flowers: Their Pronunciation and History (1927), and The Life of Edward Jenner (1931). He was also a fine water-colour painter and exhibited at the Royal Academy.
Drewitt sat on the governing bodies of the Ornithological Society, the Zoological Society, and the National Trust, and represented the Royal College of Physicians in the management of the Chelsea Physic Garden until 1941.
He had married in 1897 the Hon. Caroline Mary, daughter of the third Baron Lilford. Drewitt died on 29 July 1942, at the age of 94.
Publications:
Bombay in the Days of George IV: Memoirs of Sir Edward West, Chief Justice of the King's Court during its Conflict with the East India Company (London, 1907)
The Romance of the Apothecaries' Garden at Chelsea (London, 1922)
The Latin Names of Common Flowers: Their Pronunciation and History (London, 1927)
The Life of Edward Jenner, MD, FRS, Naturalist and Discoverer of Vaccination (London, 1931).
The Notebook of Edward Jenner in the possession of the Royal College of Physicians of London, with an introduction on Jenner's work as a naturalist by F. Dawtrey Drewitt, Edward Jenner (London, 1931)