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Dr. John Rutter ( 1762- 1838) became the first president of the Liverpool Medical Society when presiding over a meeting of forty doctors on January 10th 1833.

Born in Liverpool August 23rd 1762, he was brought up in a strict Quaker household.After his father died in 1768 the family moved back to Wigton in Cumberland to live with his unmarried uncle William Brownsword who planned John's education. In 1779 he left school and was apprenticed to to a surgeon in Whitehaven from where he went to Edinburgh University to study medicine graduating with an M.D in 1786. Amongst his teachers at Edinburgh Medical School were William Cullen,Francis Home, John Gregory and Joseph Black all pre-eminent teachers of their time.

In 1787 Rutter returned to his native city to set up a practice and within four years, aged 29, he was appointed a physician to The Liverpool Dispensary. According to contemporary and later reports he was an able and highly respected doctor. However it was his tireless advocacy for the continued and improved education of the doctor and closer union of the profession that he is most remembered for. He finally achieved this ambition in 1833 with the formation of the Liverpool Medical Society. In 1837 this Society joined with the Medical Library to become the Liverpool Medical Institution.