The eldest son of Richard Hale of
New Windsor, Berkshire, he was born at
Beckenham, Kent, in 1670. He entered
Trinity College, Oxford, with his younger brother, Henry, in June 1689, where
Thomas Sykes was his tutor. He graduated B.A. on 19 May 1693, M.A. on 4 February 1695, M.B. on 11 February 1697, and M.D. on 23 June 1701. Hale first was in practice in Oxford, where his use of
opiates undermined his reputation. At the end of his life, as a private psychiatric patient, Hale attended Frances, wife of
John Erskine, Earl of Mar, by that time a
Jacobite exile in Paris. Frances, daughter of
Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull, and sister of
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu who cared for her in England and brought in Hale, is now considered to have been suffering from clinical depression. This high-profile case was managed discreetly, in its aspects of lunacy and custody proceedings. Hale's judgement that Lady Mar was insane was later reversed, after his death, by
Richard Mead. After caring for Lady Mar over only about two months, Hale was followed by either
Richard Tyson (1680–1750), married to his niece Elizabeth Hale and son of Edward Tyson, or
James Monro (1680–1752) who succeeded him at Bedlam. ==Works==