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W. H. R. Rivers
William Halse Rivers Rivers FRS FRAI (12 March 1864 – 4 June 1922) was an English anthropologist, neurologist, ethnologist and psychiatrist known for treatment of First World War officers suffering shell shock. Rivers' most famous patient was the war poet Siegfried Sassoon, with whom he remained close friends until his own sudden death.
During the early years of the 20th century, Rivers developed new lines of psychological research. He was the first to use a double-blind procedure in investigating physical and psychological effects of consumption of tea, coffee, alcohol and drugs. For a time he directed centres for psychological studies at two colleges, and he was made a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. He also participated in the Torres Strait Islands expedition of 1898 and his consequent seminal work on the subject of kinship.
W. H. R. Rivers was born in 1864 at Constitution Hill, Chatham, Kent, son of Elizabeth (née Hunt) and Henry Frederick Rivers.
Records from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries show the Rivers family to be solidly middle-class, with many Cambridge, Church of England and Royal Navy associations. Notable members were Gunner William Rivers and his son, Midshipman William Rivers, both of whom served aboard HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship.
The senior Rivers was the master gunner aboard the Victory. He kept a commonplace book (now held in the Royal Naval Museum library in Portsmouth); it has revealed and preserved the thoughts of many of the sailors aboard the Victory.
His son Midshipman Rivers, who claimed to be "the man who shot the man who fatally wounded Lord Nelson", was a model of heroism in the Battle of Trafalgar. The seventeen-year-old midshipman nearly lost his foot when it was struck by a grenade; it was attached to him only "by a Piece of Skin abought 4 inch above the ankle". Rivers asked first for his shoes, then told the gunner's mate to look after the guns, and told Captain Hardy that he was going down to the cockpit. He endured the amputation of his leg four inches below the knee, without anaesthetic. According to legend, he did not cry out once during that nor during the consequent sealing of the wound with hot tar. When Gunner Rivers, anxious about his son's welfare, went to the cockpit to ask after him, his son called out, "Here I am, Father, nothing is the matter with me; only lost my leg and that in a good cause."
After the battle, the senior Rivers wrote a poem about his remarkable son, entitled "Lines on a Young Gentleman that lost his leg onboard the Victory in the Glorious action at Trafalgar":
May every comfort Bless thy future life,
And smooth thy cares with fond and tender wife.
Which of you all Would not have freely died,
To Save Brave Nelson There Dear Country's Pride.
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W. H. R. Rivers
William Halse Rivers Rivers FRS FRAI (12 March 1864 – 4 June 1922) was an English anthropologist, neurologist, ethnologist and psychiatrist known for treatment of First World War officers suffering shell shock. Rivers' most famous patient was the war poet Siegfried Sassoon, with whom he remained close friends until his own sudden death.
During the early years of the 20th century, Rivers developed new lines of psychological research. He was the first to use a double-blind procedure in investigating physical and psychological effects of consumption of tea, coffee, alcohol and drugs. For a time he directed centres for psychological studies at two colleges, and he was made a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. He also participated in the Torres Strait Islands expedition of 1898 and his consequent seminal work on the subject of kinship.
W. H. R. Rivers was born in 1864 at Constitution Hill, Chatham, Kent, son of Elizabeth (née Hunt) and Henry Frederick Rivers.
Records from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries show the Rivers family to be solidly middle-class, with many Cambridge, Church of England and Royal Navy associations. Notable members were Gunner William Rivers and his son, Midshipman William Rivers, both of whom served aboard HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship.
The senior Rivers was the master gunner aboard the Victory. He kept a commonplace book (now held in the Royal Naval Museum library in Portsmouth); it has revealed and preserved the thoughts of many of the sailors aboard the Victory.
His son Midshipman Rivers, who claimed to be "the man who shot the man who fatally wounded Lord Nelson", was a model of heroism in the Battle of Trafalgar. The seventeen-year-old midshipman nearly lost his foot when it was struck by a grenade; it was attached to him only "by a Piece of Skin abought 4 inch above the ankle". Rivers asked first for his shoes, then told the gunner's mate to look after the guns, and told Captain Hardy that he was going down to the cockpit. He endured the amputation of his leg four inches below the knee, without anaesthetic. According to legend, he did not cry out once during that nor during the consequent sealing of the wound with hot tar. When Gunner Rivers, anxious about his son's welfare, went to the cockpit to ask after him, his son called out, "Here I am, Father, nothing is the matter with me; only lost my leg and that in a good cause."
After the battle, the senior Rivers wrote a poem about his remarkable son, entitled "Lines on a Young Gentleman that lost his leg onboard the Victory in the Glorious action at Trafalgar":
May every comfort Bless thy future life,
And smooth thy cares with fond and tender wife.
Which of you all Would not have freely died,
To Save Brave Nelson There Dear Country's Pride.