William Cortis

William Richard Cortis (1847 – 5 January 1909) was an English-born Australian politician.

He was born in Yorkshire and attended King's College School and Guy's Hospital, where he studied medicine and qualified in 1861. In 1868 he became house surgeon at Guy's Hospital, and he later worked at Bedlam and Colney Hatch asylums. He migrated to New South Wales in 1872 and eventually settled in Bathurst, where he worked at the hospital. He married Florence Fyans. He was a Bathurst alderman and served as mayor from 1885 to 1886. In 1887 he was elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as the Free Trade member for Bathurst, but he did not run for re-election in 1889. Cortis died in Perth, Western Australia, in 1909.[1]