Waller was born
Jonathan Wathen Phipps on 6 October 1769 in London to Joshua Phipps and Mary Allen, the step-daughter of
Jonathan Wathen, a well-known eye surgeon, who practiced in London from about 1760 until his 1808 death. The elder Jonathan for many years had a junior partner in his practice named
James Ware, who ultimately became one of the best known eye surgeons in the city. When Ware in 1791 dissolved their partnership to begin his own practice, Wathen took on his step grandson Jonathan Phipps as an apprentice. As with Ware, Phipp's medical reputation grew, and by 1795 he had become the
oculist (eye doctor) to both King
George III, and George's third son William. The War with
Napoleon took place during the latter part of George III's reign, and many soldiers returning to Britain from the Nile Campaign had contracted a virulent eye disease widely known as the "Egyptian
ophthalmia". Little was known at the time about treating it effectively, and this led Phipps to start in 1804 the
Royal Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye, which was the first hospital of its kind in London. The establishment of this institution preceded by several months the 1805 founding by
John Cunningham Saunders of the much better known
London Dispensary for curing Diseases of the Eye and Ear on
Charterhouse Square, which later became the
Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital (Moorfields Eye Hospital). Phipps in 1814 assumed the name Waller to inherit the estates of his maternal great-grandfather Thomas Waller (d. 1731), and he used the name Jonathan Wathen Waller on 27 December 1814 when George III created him the
1st Baronet of Braywick Lodge. When George III died in 1820, Jonathan then became the physician to George's eldest son and heir,
George IV, and when this king died in 1830, Jonathan attended him on his deathbed. He subsequently became the
Groom of the Bedchamber for George IV's younger brother and heir
William IV. The new king soon afterward in 1832 made Jonathan a Knight Grand Cross of the
Royal Guelphic Order (G.C.H.). and died on 1 January 1853 at
Cavendish Square in
St. Marylebone, London. His burial took place in the vault of
Trinity Church on 7 January 1853. ==Notes==