One of the most respected physicians of his day and an experimental pharmacologist who established precedents for the field's scientific integrity, Richardson was an active participant in some of the most popular reform movements of the 19th century. He was closely involved in the push for temperance and in the drives for improvements in sanitation and public hygiene. The physician was also one of the first scientists to advocate human treatment of laboratory animals.

Richardson was born in Somerby, Leicestershire, England. Some of his early medical education was as an apprentice to a surgeon in his hometown, after which he entered Anderson's University in 1847. He continued his medical studies in 1850 at the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons in Glasgow, Scotland, and then received his medical degree from Scotland's University of St. Andrews in 1854.

In 1856, Richardson began working as a physician at the Royal Infirmary for Diseases of the...