Background
He was one of seven sons of Review Doctor Alexander Keith, one of the ministers who broke away to form the Free Church of Scotland. His mother, Jane Blaikie (1793–1837), was the sister of Sir Thomas Blaikie, the Scottish magistrate.
He was one of seven sons of Review Doctor Alexander Keith, one of the ministers who broke away to form the Free Church of Scotland. His mother, Jane Blaikie (1793–1837), was the sister of Sir Thomas Blaikie, the Scottish magistrate.
Thomas Keith was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, then studied Art at Marischal College and in 1845 became a medical apprentice — the last in Edinburgh — to Sir James Young Simpson.
Three of Thomas Keith"s brothers entered the medical profession. Keith produced innovations in both surgery and photography. He qualified in surgery at the University of Edinburgh after which he moved to Turin as House Surgeon to Sir William Abercromby in the British Embassy, returning to Edinburgh in 1851.
Their surgery flourished and Keith became a prominent gynaecologist and a specialist in ovarian and uterine disorders.
In his photography Thomas used the waxed paper process. His work showed great artistic skill and a mastery of the chemical processes involved.
Because of the pressures inflicted by his medical practice, Keith neglected photography after 1859, but by this time he had created a priceless photographic record of nineteenth-century Edinburgh. Keith"s prints and negatives are kept at the Edinburgh Central Library, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Scottish Academy, the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, George Eastman House, Harry Ransom Center
His death early on the morning of Wednesday, 9 October 1895, after a lifetime of battling kidney stones, was hastened by constant exposure to early antiseptics.
He had been living at Charles Street, Berkeley Square in London and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.
He was also doctor to Lady Randolph Churchill
He contributed numerous papers on ovariotomy to the Edinburgh Medical Journal and to the British Medical Journal.
George was also a founding member of the Photographic Society of Scotland.