Surgeon. Studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and at St. Thomas's Hospital, London. M.R.C.S. 1841; E.R.C.S. (by election) 1844. Assistant surgeon for six years in naval hospital, Malta; left Navy in 1848, but later again entered naval service. Meanwhile, had settled in practice in London. For twenty years surgeon at Samaritan Free Hospital, London; then consulting surgeon. In perfecting technique of ovariotomy, became originator of modern abdominal surgery. Filled all principal offices of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Recipient of honorary degrees and distinctions, British and foreign. Created baronet 1883. Surgeon to Queen's Household, 1863-1896. For some years editor of Medical Times and Gazette. Published works on medicine and surgery.

The writer of "In the Dardanelles" tells of his exploring "the classic ground of Troy", minutely familiar to him from his schoolboy studies of Homer. His exploration, he states, took place during the five days in August (no year given) during which H.M. sloop Modeste, to which he was attached, was forced to lie at anchor off the town of the Dardanelles while her captain obtained from Constantinople permission to ascend the Strait.

Admiralty Records in the Public Record Office, London, record that the Modeste was in the Mediterranean, at sea and at various ports, from the latter part of 1851 through 1853 (as well as later); that on August 251852, a Turkish pilot was taken on at the Dardanelles to pilot the ship to Constantinople; that Thomas Spencer Wells was assigned to the Modeste as surgeon September 4 1851, and discharged from the ship (not from the service) April 7 1853, at Malta, at own request. The only other Wells listed for the Modeste for these years is WilIiam Wells, captain's cook, serving September-November 1851.

Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1971.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography