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 feeble, and often obliged him to suspend his work. During one of his journeys abroad for health he wrote the letters on ‘Beguines and Nursing,’ printed in the appendix to Southey's ‘Colloquies on Society,’ and in December 1825 he wrote an article on the plague in the ‘Quarterly Review.’ In January 1826 he had hæmoptysis, and in April of that year, in view of the probable necessity of his retirement from practice, his friend Sir William Knighton procured for him the post of librarian to the king. He grew more and more emaciated, but still worked hard, and in 1829 finished at Brighton the ‘Account of some of the most Important Diseases peculiar to Women,’ which is his chief work, and is still read. In January 1830 he wrote an article in the ‘Quarterly Review’ on the Anatomy Act, and at last, confined to bed by consumption, died 16 Feb. 1830, leaving two sons and a daughter. His scattered papers have been published, with a new edition of his treatise on the diseases of women, by Dr. Robert Ferguson, London, 1859. Gooch had a power of clear description, and besides showing careful clinical observation his writings are readable. His account of a nightmare which he had in boyhood (Lives of British Physicians, p. 306) is a model of a description which owes its power to the perfect truth and simplicity of the narration. Many similar examples of precise forcible description are to be found in his medical writings. He certainly deserved the high reputation which he had among his contemporaries. He was a small man, with large dark eyes, and his hands were always cold; ‘the cold hand of a dyspeptic,’ he once said (for he was unwilling to admit that the coldness was due to the consumption obvious in his face), ‘is an advantage in the examination of the abdomen; the old physicians used for the purpose to plunge one hand into cold water.’ His portrait by R. J. Lane, given by his daughter, is at the College of Physicians of London.



GOOCH, THOMAS, D.D. (1674–1754), bishop of Ely, was the son of Thomas Gooch of Yarmouth, by Frances, daughter of Thomas Lone of Worlingham, Suffolk, where he was born 9 Jan. 1674. He entered Caius College, Cambridge, in 1691, and graduated B.A. in 1694, and M.A. in 1698. He was elected to a fellowship 9 July 1698, and seems to have resided and held various lectureships and college offices for some years. His first step of ecclesiastical promotion was his appointment as domestic chaplain to [q. v.], bishop of London, whose funeral sermon he preached at St. Paul's (1713). He was then successively chaplain in ordinary to Queen Anne; rector of St. Clement's, Eastcheap, and St. Martin Orgar's; archdeacon of Essex (1714–37); canon residentiary of Chichester (1719); lecturer at Gray's Inn; canon of Canterbury (1730–8); master of Caius College (from 29 Nov. 1716 to his death); vice-chancellor in 1717, when, owing partly to his exertions, the senate house was built; bishop of Bristol (12 June 1737), ‘where he stayed so short. a time as never to have visited his diocese’ ; bishop of Norwich (17 Oct. 1738), ‘where he repaired and beautified the palace at a very great expense;’ bishop of Ely (January 1747–1748) to his death (14 Feb. 1753–4).

He succeeded to the baronetcy at the death of his brother William, governor of Virginia, in 1751; ‘although the bishop was the elder brother (it being most probably thought of by him), yet he was also put into the patent to succeed to the title in case the governor [i.e. his brother] should die without male issue’.

He was three times married: first to Mary, daughter of Dr. William Sherlock, dean of St. Paul's, afterwards bishop of Salisbury; by her he had one son, Sir Thomas Gooch (1720–1781) of Benacre, Suffolk, who inherited a very large fortune from his maternal grandfather; secondly to Hannah, daughter of Sir John Miller of Lavant, Sussex, bart., by whom he had also one son, John; thirdly, when in his seventy-fifth year, to Mary, daughter of Hatton Compton, esq., great-granddaughter of, second earl of Northampton [q. v.], and great-niece of, bishop of London [q. v.]

He was in many ways a typical bishop of the last century: courteous, dignified, and charitable in his conduct; attentive to the official work of his diocese, as well as to his parliamentary duties to his party. Cole (whose narrative must of course be received with caution) has a number of amusing anecdotes illustrative of Gooch's adroitness in his own personal advancement, and pertinacity in securing abundant preferment for his younger son. These characteristics are not borne out by his extant correspondence. It may also be remarked that a certain story, still repeated in combination rooms, of the device by which the master of Caius allowed a college living to lapse to the Bishop of Nor-