Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825) was the brother of John Bowdler and Harriet Bowdler. He studied medicine in St Andrews and Edinburgh and spent four years travelling in Europe. In 1781 he caught a fever from his friend Lord John Clinton, whom he was attending in Lisbon. On returning to England, he gave up medicine and devoted himself to the cause of prison reform. Together with his sister Harriet Bowdler, he edited “The Family Shakespeare”, published under his name in 1807. This was an expurgated edition of 24 of Shakespeare’s plays, omitting all words and phrases they found distasteful, and gave rise to the term to “bowdlerise”.