John Clendinning (1798–1848) underwent a lengthy medical education. After graduating in medicine at both Dublin and Edinburgh, he attended Göttingen and other foreign universities before being incorporated as a DM of Oxford in 1827. On settling in London, he became physician to the Western Dispensary and to the St Marylebone Dispensary. He was elected FRS in 1841, and held many offices at the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. At the Royal College of Physicians, he was a Censor and Croonian Lecturer (1838–1840). It was, in fact, as an active fellow of the College that he was best known, for he had neither the patience nor the inclination to be a successful practitioner. Unattractive in appearance and manner, and of an unusual independence of mind, he won his colleagues’ respect by his unswerving devotion to his liberal and reformist principles.