Richard Sandon Gutteridge M.D. (25 March 1829 – 1899) was a British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy to become Physician at the Leicester Homeopathic Dispensary, 2 East Street, and a Member of the Northern Homeopathic Association and the Midland Homoeopathic Medical Society.

Prior to becoming an homeopath, Gutteridge listed his previous appointments as Physician for the Metropolitan Provident Dispensary at Osnaburgh Place, Regents Park, Physician for the Home for the Diseases of Women, and Lecturer on Physiology at the London Artisans’ Institute, and in 1884 Physician to a “Dispensary for Cancer and Consumption,” at Duke Street, Grosvenor Square. Gutteridge  was a Member of the Statistical Society, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He was also formerly an Honorary Member of the Glasgow Andersonian University Medical Society, but was struck from the roll of Honorary Members early in 1859 owing to his practicing homeopathically in Leicester.

Gutteridge practiced at 25 London Road, Leicester, and in London at Croft Cottage, Southgate, at 44 Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, 58 Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, and at 26 Gilberts Street, Brook Street.

Richard Sandon Gutteridge was born in March 1829, in Aspley Guise, Bedfordshire, the son of Richard Gutteridge (1806 – 1831) and Mary Farmer (1802 – 1855).

In July 1855, Richard Gutteridge married Mary Ann Wilkins (1835 – 1866) in Banbury, Oxfordshire. They had two children, Richard (1856 – 1926), an accountant, and New Zealand-based homeopathic physician, Matthew Wilkins Gutteridge (1859 – 1926). After Mary Ann died in 1866, Gutteridge married Ohioan Martha Green Kirby (1847 – 1909) in October 1868.

By 1856, Gutteridge and his family were living in Leicester where, in 1861, he was recorded as practicing as an homeopathic physician. That year, Gutteridge was at the centre of a furore over his use of medical credentials that an orthodox physician, Macauley, charged him with inventing. Two years previously, in January 1859, a unanimous resolution passed at a special meeting of the  Glasgow Andersonian University Medical Society, erased Gutteridge’s name from the roll of Honorary Members, after it was revealed that he was publicly practicing homeopathy at the Leicester Dispensary.

Nevertheless, according to the 1868 and 1872 Homoeopathic Medical Directory Great Britain and Ireland, Gutteridge qualified M.D. from the Western Medical College (later Cleveland Homeopathic Medical College) in 1855. The following year, 1856, he was awarded another M.D. from the University of Erlangen in Bavaria, Germany. In 1858, Gutteridge was granted the Licence of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons, Glasgow and a Licence in Midwifery.

In 1867, Richard Gutteridge became a member of the Northern Homeopathic Association, and in 1876 was admitted as a member of the

In 1870, Gutteridge revised and updated Jean Philibert Berjeau‘s 1857 work, The Homeopathic Treatment of Syphilis, Gonorrhoea, Spermatorrhoea, and Urinary Diseases. In 1875, he revised and enlarged Joseph Laurie‘s An Epitome of the Homoeopathic Domestic Medicine, and revised and updated Laurie’s Homeopathic Guide for Family Use.

These revised editions were published by London Homeopathic Chemists Leath and Ross. Gutteridge’s close relationship with the firm was also apparent with the production of their 1879 mahogany medicine chest, number 6a. This comprehensive, portable collection of more than 96 remedies and equipment also contained a copy of Gutteridge’s revision of Joseph Laurie‘s An Epitome of the Homoeopathic Domestic Medicine.

Gutteridge contributed papers to homeopathic journals, and frequently participated in meetings, including the 1881 Homeopathic Convention held in London, where he delivered a paper on cancer.

In August 1889, Gutteridge attended the International Homeopathic Congress in Paris. Intriguingly, the brief mention of the English attendees in the British Homoeopathic Review only listed John Henry Clarke, John James Drysdale, Robert Ellis Dudgeon, and Richard Hughes, although both Gutteridge and London-based, Anglo-German homeopathic physician Frederick Leopold Süss-Hahnemann were both also recorded in the official account of members present.

Gutteridge’s later career appears to have entailed a shift away from homeopathy towards eclecticism. In January 1899, the year of his death, Gutteridge was listed in the Royal Blue Book: Fashionable Directory and Parliamentary Guide as residing at 62 Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, London.

Select Publications:

Of interest:

Matthew Wilkins Guttridge M.R.C.S. (1859 – 1926), son of Richard Sandon Gutteridge, born in Leicester, was also a homeopath in Tasmania.

In 1898, Matthew Wilkins Gutteridge was in Tasmania, leading research into homeopathy where a new hospital for women had recently opened. As a number of the Members of the Board were advocates of homeopathy, a ward was set aside for homeopathic treatment with Gutteridge in charge, which caused the usual storm of protests from local allopaths. By 1900, the allopaths had launched a major boycott of Gutteridge in Launceston, and further boycotts were in place against his colleagues to the south of the island.