John Hitchman was born at Northleach in Gloucestershire and educated at its Grammar School. He received his first medical education as the pupil of a general practitioner at Fairford and the rest in London, chiefly at Guy’s and St. Thomas’s Hospitals. After qualifying in 1838, he returned to Fairford and became resident medical officer at the Fairford Lunatic Asylum. His next appointment was as resident physician at the sanatorium in Marylebone Road, London. In 1846, however, he became resident medical officer in the female department of the Middlesex County Asylum at Hanwell, then regarded as a model institution. After four years there, he was offered the post of medical superintendent of the Derby County Asylum, then being built at Mickleover, and there he remained until his retirement in 1872. He was president of the Psychological Association in 1856. Amongst his nonprofessional offices was the vice-presidency of the Derbyshire Agricultural Society. Hitchman, who was married, passed his last years at Fairford and Cheltenham.

G H Brown

[B.M.J., 1893; Plarr, i, 547]