Walter Gawen King
Colonel Walter Gawen King (4 December 1851 – 4 April 1935) was a British Indian army surgeon who served in the Madras Presidency as a sanitary officer and introduced a number of public health measures for the first time in India. The King Institute of Preventive Medicine and Research in Chennai was named in his honour in 1905. Life King was born in England, the son of J. H. King and Laura daughter of George William Marrett, engineer to the Nizam in Hyderabad. He studied medicine at the University of Aberdeen, receiving an MB and CM in 1873 and joined the Indian Medical Service in 1874. He served in the 31's and the 5th Burmah regiments and became a civil surgeon in 1877 at Madras. While posted here, he was a professor of hygiene at the Madras Medical College. During the famines of 1876-77 and 1896-97 in southern India, his services were recognized by the government. He served in Burma from 1906 to 1908. He was made CIE in 1899. He retired to England in 1910 with the rank of colonel and lived in Hendon where he died in 1935. King's major work was on vaccination and public health. He