William Battie (1704–1776) helped found St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, London, in 1751, where he also served as a physician. He was the first teacher of the subject of insanity in England, and his teachings helped make the treatment of insanity respectable. In the painting Battie is holding a copy of his 'Treatise on Madness', which challenged the traditional thinking on the subject. He saw that madness was not a single illness, requiring a single form of treatment, and was the first ‘mad doctor’ to treat his patients as individual cases. Battie originally wanted to be a lawyer, but for unknown reasons became a physician. He taught at Cambridge University, where his lectures were heard by Horace Walpole. He became the proprietor of a private asylum as well as a governor of Bethlem psychiatric hospital.