William Job Collins

William Job Collins (9 May 1859, London – 11 December 1946, London) was a surgeon and later politician and legislator.

He was the eldest son of William Job Collins (also a doctor) and Mary Anne Francisca (nee Treacher). He attended University College School, London, and began his medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he became ophthalmic house surgeon, extern midwifery assistant and assistant demonstrator of anatomy at the medical school. His Times obituary reports that "his further progress toward the staff of the school was barred by the heterodox views he held, and freely expressed, on the subject of vaccination".

He subsequently became a Fellow, Scholar and gold medallist in Sanitary Science and Obstetrics at the University of London, graduating as MD in 1882.

Along with Charles Creighton and Edgar Crookshank, he become one of a small number of medical critics of smallpox vaccination in the late 19th century. He was also a member of the Royal Commission on Vaccination, 1889-1896.

He later specialised in anatomy and ophthalmology, in 1918 receiving the University of Oxford Doyne Ophthalmic Medal, having been knighted in 1902. He served two terms as Vice-Chancellor of the University of London in 1907-1909 and 1911-12.

In later life he turned to politics, elected as as member of London County Council for St Pancras in 1892, reaching the office of chairman in 1897. He was elected Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for St Pancras West, 1906-1910, and for Derby in 1917-18. In parliament he was particularly instrumental in promoting the Metropolitan Ambulance Act, that resulted in the establishment of the London ambulance service.

He served on various government committees, including the Vivisection Committee 1906-1912, as British plenipotentiary at the international opium conferences at The Hague, 1911-1914, the Sussex Agricultural Wages Committee, and the Select Committee on the Hop Industry.

He was awarded a KCVO in 1914, and served as Vice-Lieutenant of the County of London, 1925-1945.

Publications

 * 1883 Sir Lyon Playfair's Logic LONDON: E.W. ALLEN
 * 1883 A Review of the Norwich Vaccination Inquiry LONDON: E.W. ALLEN
 * 1884 Specificity and Evolution in Disease