Thomas Clifford Allbutt

Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt (July 20, 1836 – February 22, 1925) was a British physician and inventor of the clinical thermometer.

Born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, he was the son of Thomas Allbutt, Vicar of Dewsbury and Susan Wooler. Sir Thomas had no children.

Allbutt's invention of the clinical thermometer was widely welcomed because, beforehand, patients were required to hold a one-foot-long thermometer in their hands which took about twenty minutes for an acceptable measurement to be taken of their body temperature.

Allbutt became regius professor of physics at the University of Cambridge in 1892 and was knighted in 1907. He died in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire in 1925.