William Marsden (surgeon)
William Marsden (August 1796 – 16 January 1867) was an English surgeon whose main achievements are the founding of two presently well-known hospitals, the Royal Free Hospital (in 1828) and the Royal Marsden Hospital (in 1851). Marsden was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, the youngest of eight children. When he left school he was apprenticed to a wholesale druggist in Sheffield. In 1816, he moved to London where he took up an apprenticeship to a surgeon-apothecary before setting up on his own. At the end of 1824 he enrolled as a student of surgery at St Bartholomew's Hospital under the famous surgeon and lecturer John Abernethy (1764–1831).