Background
When he was nine years old, Halliday had to earn his own living by tending cattle because of his father"s financial problems.
When he was nine years old, Halliday had to earn his own living by tending cattle because of his father"s financial problems.
He graduated with an Doctor of Medicine on 24 June 1806 from the University of Edinburgh with a thesis entitled De pneumatosi that he later published as a book
He later advanced himself by qualifying as a schoolteacher. After travelling in Russia, he set up in practice at Halesowen, Shropshire. In 1807, he became a surgeon in the 13th Light Dragoons.
Whilst in the British Army, Halliday served in the Napoleonic Wars in Portugal, Spain, and the West Indies, at the Siege of Bergen op Zoom (1814) and the Battle of Waterloo.
He was later the domestic physician to the Duke of Clarence (who became William IV), and traveled on the continent with him. In 1817, he was made a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and, in 1819, of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
While traveling on the continent, he became familiar with the medical applications of iodine, introducing it to Britain upon his return in 1819 and publishing an article on it in 1821. In August 1827 he was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
In 1829, he helpd to establish King"s College London.
He also served as the majesty"s justice of the peace for the county of Middlesex. He was appointed Deputy Inspector-General of hospitals in the West Indies in 1832, but returned to his native Dumfries in 1837 because of ill health. He died at Huntingdon Lodge in Dumfries on 7 September 1839.
Halliday was the first physician to the Seamen"s Hospital Society, which was established in 1821 with the purpose of helping people currently or previously employed in the Merchant Navy or fishing fleets.
Halliday was the royal physician to William IV and to Queen Victoria. Before and after his military service he publicized the deplorable state of British and Irish insane asylums.
He wrote Annals of the house of Hanover and The West Indies: the Nature and Physical History of the Windward and Leeward Colonies, published in 1826 and 1837, respectively.