Background
The eldest son of Hugh Chamberlen the elder, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and took the degree of Master of Arts
The eldest son of Hugh Chamberlen the elder, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and took the degree of Master of Arts
After studying medicine at the University of Leyden he graduated Doctor of Medicine He dined with Jonathan Swift, and attended Francis Atterbury in the Tower of London.
In 1683 per literas regias. at Cambridge in 1689. In 1694 he was admitted a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and was censor in 1707, 1719, 1721. Chamberlen practised midwifery like his forbears, and had many fashionable patients.
His own house was in King Street, Covent Garden, but he spent much time in the society of the Duchess of Buckingham and Normanby at Buckingham House.
Cnamberlen died at Buckingham House after a long illness on 17 June 1728. A monument to Chamberlen, put up by the 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, is in the north choir aisle of Westminster Abbey.
His life size effigy reclines in doctoral robes on the lid of a sarcophagus surrounded by emblematic sculptures, while a long Latin epitaph by Atterbury praises his family, his life, his descendants, and his patron. The safe delivery of the Duchess of Buckingham and Normanby, which is mentioned by Atterbury as one of the reasons for the monument, was also commemorated in the 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby"s essay On Vulgar Errors.
The "Psylas" of Samuel Garth"s The Dispensary (6th edit London, 1706, p 91) also refers to Chamberlen.
Chamberlen"s library was sold in 1734 after the death of his widow, and a copy of the catalogue went to the British Museum. Chamberlen married three times, and had three daughters.