slum dwellingJohn Williams Hayward M.D. M.R.C.S. L.S.A. (13 October 1828 – 30 October 1914), was a British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy, to become a Surgeon at the Liverpool Homeopathic Dispensary, President of The Liverpool Medico Chirurgical Society, a member of the British Homeopathic Society, Corresponding Member of the American Institute of Homoeopathy, and Honorary Secretary of the Hahnemann Publishing Society.

John Williams Hayward was a Secretary of the 2nd International Homeopathic Congress, held in London at Aberdeen House, Argyll Street, Regent Street, on July 11 – 18, 1881.

John Williams Hayward lived for most of his career in the Liverpool area. In 1855, he was at 153 Brownlow Street, by 1866 he lived at Vernon House, and from 1867 he was at The Octagon, Grove Street, Liverpool. Hayward designed this latter house in conjunction with his colleague, Dr. John James Drysdale, as a purpose-built residence that implemented the ideas they later outlined in their 1872 book Heating and Comfort in House Building. Hayward and Drysdale regarded physicians as primary agents for change, having unrivaled access to the homes of the population where they were able to identify causes of ill health in the construction and outfitting of buildings. Hayward and Drysdale explained that healthy houses were to be likened to healthy bodies and healthy living, indeed, they were “overlapping systems,” the houses were built and their designs were presented to the Architectural Society in Liverpool, claiming that living in such houses dramatically improved the health of the occupants.

John Williams Haywood was born in Stockport, Macclesfield, Lancashire on 13 October 1828 (or, 13 December, 1829). He apprenticed to a local orthodox physician and later as an unqualified assistant in Stockport, Liverpool, and Abingdon, Berkshire.

Hayward proceeded to Glasgow where he studied at the Andersonian University, and held a Parish appointment during the 1852 cholera outbreak where.

Hayward was already practicing in Liverpool when he received his M.D. in 1854, from the University of St Andrews. The same year, he became a Licentiate of the Glasgow Apothecaries Company, and was admitted as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, England.

Hayward, successfully experimented with using homeopathy during the Liverpool Asiatic cholera outbreaks of 1849 – 1852 and 1854. He became convinced of the efficacy of Hahnemann‘s system, and henceforth proceeded to use homeopathy in his general practice.

Haywood became a physician at the Liverpool Homeopathic Dispensary on Hardman Street.

In 1856, Haywood married Elizabeth Jane Davey of Truro (1832 – 1905). They had five children, John Davey M.D. (1857 – 1938), Frederick Hamilton (1859 – 1894), Mary Elizabeth (1861 – 1937), Charles William M.D. (1864 – 1925), and William Davey Hayward M.B. Ch.B. (1870 – 1950). Three of the four sons followed their father into the medical profession.

John Williams Hayward and his partner, John James Drysdale, were active in the Domestic Sanitation Movement. They believed  that as doctors, they saw the inside of many homes, and they criticised architects for placing their emphasis on aesthetics and not on health. Hayward went on to contribute to the design of the Liverpool Hahnemann Homeopathic Hospital, the first hospital in the country to contain hydraulic lifts and an innovative heating and ventilation system.

In 1874, Haywood applied for a vacant surgeon’s post at the Liverpool Royal Infirmary. However, because he was an avowed homeopath he was not considered for the position.

The founding of the Liverpool Hahnemann Homeopathic Hospital was largely the result of Hayward’s friendship with sugar magnate and philanthropist Sir Henry Tate.

In 1876, Hayward, along with Richard Hughes and Arthur Crowen Clifton, attended the first World’s Homoeopathic Convention, held in Philadelphia at the First Reformed Church from June 26 to July 1, under the auspices of the American Institute of Homeopathy. As a mark of respect, Hayward and his colleagues were awarded honorary M.D.’s from New York.

Hayward wrote prolifically and also contributed cases and articles to various homeopathic publications, including a paper titled “Homeopathic Hospitals and Dispensaries: A Comparison,” and even published in The Lancet.

Hayward retired into private life in 1899, but remained a public proponent of homeopathy. The following year, 1900, he gave a lecture to a large audience of the African Trade Section of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce on Homeopathy and Malarial Diseases, at the Exchange Buildings in Liverpool. Hayward asserted that the mortality rates were “appalling” for “blackwater fever” sufferers treated by allopathic methods, in stark contrast with those treated homeopathically. He called for the Chamber or the Colonial Office to appoint an homeopathic physician to the “most malarious districts” on the west coast of Africa, even stating that were it not for his age he would go himself and on his own account.

By 1911, Hayward was residing at 61 Shrewsbury Road, Oxton, Birkenhead.

John Williams Hayward moved again, to Strathdene, Shrewsbury Road, Birkenhead, where he died on 30 October 1914, aged 86. He was interred in the Non-Conformist’s section of Flaybrick Memorial Gardens.

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John Davey Hayward M.D. L.R.C.S. L.S.A. (1857 – 1938), son of John Williams Hayward, was a British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy and went into private practice in Liverpool with Dr. William Cash Reed. In 1886, he won a 25 guinea prize for the best essay on homeopathy, awarded by Major Vaughan-Morgan at the London Homeopathic Hospital.

Charles Williams Hayward M.D. C.M. D.P.H. M.R.C.S. L.R.C.P. (1864 – 1925), son of John Williams Hayward, was a British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy to become an Ear, Nose and Throat Surgeon at the Liverpool Homeopathic Dispensary. He delivered a paper to the 8th International Homoeopathic Congress, held in London in July, 1911, relating to the use of ionization in the administering of the homeopathic drug. Hayward claimed a one per cent solution of cocaine passed into the tissues in this way produced anaesthesia far beyond that attainable by hypodermic injection of even a maximum dose.

Lieutenant Colonel William Davey Hayward M.B. Ch.B. (1870 – 1950), son of John Williams Hayward, was a surgeon with the Indian Medical Service.

George Hayward (d. 1868), a stationer, of Olive Cottage, Water Lane, Dulwich Road, Brixton, was a subscriber to the short-lived Hahnemann Hospital at 39 Bloomsbury Square in 1851, and a member of the Management Committee of the Clapham Homeopathic Dispensary in 1855.