Background
He was born in Sandwich, Kent and educated at a seminary in France.
He was born in Sandwich, Kent and educated at a seminary in France.
University of Edinburgh.
He started to study medicine in Edinburgh, but after three years he moved to Holland, and qualified as a doctor of medicine at Leyden in 1776. He then visited Groningen, Aix-la-Chapelle and various universities in Germany. He returned to England and was admitted a Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1778.
In 1780 he was appointed physician to the Westminster dispensary and in 1781 physician to Street Luke"s Hospital for Lunatics, dealing from that time onwards mainly with cases of insanity and acquiring a high reputation.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1779 and delivered their Croonian Lecture in 1784 on the Irritability of the Muscular Fibres. He was also made a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1791.
He was elected President of the London Medical Society in 1780. He was for many years the sole editor of the "London Medical Journal" and " Medical Facts and Observations." He was also the compiler of the "Medical Register", an early Medical Directory.
In 1804 he was appointed one of the mentally deranged King George III"s physicians extraordinary.
He resigned his position at Street Luke’s hospital in 1811, but was retained as a consulting physician. He died at his house in Poland Street, London and was buried in the churchyard of Street Clement’s, Sandwich. He left one son, Richard Simmons, who was also a physician and Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal Society.
Royal Society.